ALBUM REVIEW - Necrowretch - "Satanic Slavery"

By: Conor O’Dea

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 14/04/2017

Label: Season of Mist

 

For something so embedded with crust, rust and cadaverous unmentionables, it is an incredibly refreshing, riff-dense monster of an album, almost ebullient in its putrid malevolence.

“Satanic Slavery” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1.Sprawl of Sin

2.Tredeciman Blackfire

3.Satanic Slavery

4.Evil Names

5.Hellspawn Pyre

6.Bestial Rites

7.Curse of Blasphemy

8.Verses from the Depths

The Review:

There's rigor mortis. There's decay. There's profound deliquescence. And then there's Necrowretch. “Satanic Slavery” is the third full length for these French madmen, and the old school approach to death metal here is almost ancestral in its atavism. While there are some Gallic contemporaries kicking out similar barbarisms, like Venefixion, and while there are obvious comparisons to Angelcorpse and Incantation, what really gets me charged up about this album is how much, for me, it evokes early Sadusand, to a lesser extent, Morbid Saint. I'm talking “Certain Death” era Sadushere. It's in the spastic energy. It's in the unhinged nature of the vocals. It is in the fact that the music feels ever so slightly 'dangerous' in that classic 'if you are a false, do not entry' way.

I'm at a bit of loss to really identify highlights as the album is pretty relentlessly excellent. Songs that really stand out for me in terms of brutally catchy hooks would be “Tredeciman Blackfire”, the title track and the closer, “Verses from the Depths”. However, the real standout factors for me are the decipherability of the thick bass, amazing runs like the Annihilator evocative riff midway through “Sprawl of Sin”, and the reverb-soaked vocals. This album is immensely enjoyable, almost ebullient in its putrid malevolence.

This corpse is filthy and moving indefatigably and relentlessly under its rotten machinery. For something so embedded with crust, rust and cadaverous unmentionables, it is an incredibly refreshing, riff-dense monster of an album. Who would have thought such a breath of fresh air would have come from the tomb? Elegantly and savagely decomposed.

“Satanic Slavery”is available here

Band info: bandcamp|| facebook