I cannot claim familiarity or history with Romanian death metal act Necrotum, but the promo sump was shallow in January and an album title like Defleshed Exhumation was sure to catch the eye of Steel even in more target-rich environs. This is the band’s third full-length effort and it features a sound sitting at the crossroads of tech/prog/OSDM. Their earlier releases were much more traditional caveman death, but here on Defleshed, it seems like the boys wanted to stretch themselves and try some new things. This newfound progressive leaning gives the material a heavy, yet unpredictable style, like classic Suffocation mixed with the latest Tomb Mold. The template is quite promising, but can these old school dogs learn enough new tricks to keep things interesting and under control or will the wheels come off the death bus with no one around to Asphyx them?
Leading the charge with very downtuned guitars, opener “Warped in Entrails” (yes, I thought it should be “wrapped” too) comes out swinging and tries to bulldoze you into a mass grave with heavy grooves accented by fancy time signatures and frequent tempo shifts. There are bits of classic Cryptopsy in the sound and the band can play their instruments well, with an enjoyable lunacy and exuberance to the music, but little of it sticks. “Noxious Breeze” tries to walk that delicate line between straight-up brutal death and proggy/techy fare and falls off both sides along the way, though the flashes of Nile-esque guitar noodling are quite cool. When they restain their proggy impulses and shove heavy, ugly grooves up your Hersey highway as they do on “Dissolved in the Flesh Pits,”1 things get slightly more memorable, and the uber-low, burly riffs sometimes smack like Dying Fetus. “Mouldered Orb” is also a touch more immediate, though not exactly hooky.
Unfortunately, roughly half of Defleshed Exhumation leaves me staring vacantly at the walls of my office/holding cell. Cuts like “Shattered Flow of Time” and “Psychotic Apparations” are stock standard examples of tech death without much to trigger replays, and the album ends with a needless cover of Demigod’s “As I Behold I Despise.” Considering the album is just over 36 minutes, the fact they needed a cover to pad it out is troubling. Had I been asked to guess the album length, I would have said it ran much longer, which is generally not a good omen. The production is fine for the style though, with the guitars delivering a very low-end, oppressive impact, crushing your fat face from can-see to can’t-see. There’s a nice heavy punch to the drum sound as well.
This is a talented trio who have command of their instruments. Robert Brezean’s guitar work is impressive and he manages to cast off all manner of herky-jerky, jitter-inducing leads as well as the big, road-paving grooves. Alex Tampu is a fury behind the kit, doing everything he can to propel the music through your skull, and Filip Garlonta’s vocals are appropriately guttural and sick, though very one-note. Unfortunately, these individually solid pieces don’t come together often enough to form memorable songs. They try to do too much too often and the songs end up too cluttered and frenetic. Also bringing the album down are the downtuned guitars that make the material resemble deathcore pablum and this becomes tiring by the album’s halfway point.
Necrotum have talent and potential and their earlier works are quite entertaining, but the switch from more basic OSDM to the flashy, proggy style here hasn’t done them any favors. There’s a good EP buried in Defleshed Exhumation, but wrenching it out would require more effort than I’m willing to expend. I’ll keep an eye on what the band does going forward but my time will be spent with their early platters, not this one. Hardened tech death fiends may get greater mileage from this than I did though. Guard those Necrotums, boys.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Memento Mori
Websites: necrotumdeathmetal.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/necrotumdm
Releases Worldwide: January 22nd, 2024
