Graveyard Ghoul - Necrocult

GRAVEYARD GHOUL - Necrocult (demo MC 2012)

Just when you thought that at the times, when death metal started to become “too-everything” (like too technical, with too many riffs, too brutal, too fast, too boring…), some maniacs decided to take a way of total regression and bring the old feeling back from the abyss. Like the most horrid creatures crawling out of the catacombs, new bands started to rise and release more and more filthy slabs of old school death metal.  And it feels good to me. I like this resurrection of classic sound and how those young bands manage to create such great death metal devastations. But with many Swedish or Incantation hybrids around, there are also bands, which go for even more obscure and morbid sounds of this music. Graveyard Ghoul is one of those bands. This is very young group of well… very young maniacs. I guess I can say so, as I don’t think neither Disgracer or Tyrantor have reached even 25, which is not really a problem, as long as they have a right attitude towards this music. And they do! Just by the fact that Graveyard Ghoul has released their first demo, “Necrocult”, on tape should be worthy of beer or two. Plus the music, which this demo contains, makes me want to grab another few boozes and vomit in the delight of the archaic death metal cult.

When I started to listen to this demo and those church bells resounded along with the opening, sort of doomy riff, first thing, which I had in my mind was… Behemoth. Yeah, you’re not mistaken, the opening theme of “Necrocult” reminds me Polish Behemoth. How come? Well, obviously I don’t mean “Demigod” or “Apostasy” albums hehe! If you listen to the “Return of the Northern Moon” 1992 demo and then “Necrocult” then you may find a lot of similarities between the “March of the Cadaver” and this ancient Behemoth recording (I mean very obscure, doomy playing, which creates a dark and grim atmosphere. Eh, if you know Behemoth’s “Dark Triumph” – a very, very old song - then you know what I mean). Anyway, “March of the Cadaver” is just an instrumental track, one which is about to put us in the right mood, before “Necrocult”, the title song, blows the speakers. Well, I can tell you that Graveyard Ghoul turned out to be really cool, very obscure and filthy old styled death metal band!

What I like about this demo is its atmosphere. Sure that one may say that Graveyard Ghoul doesn’t play anything original or that the production on the “Necrocult” is very dusty and raw, but fuck off. This is why I like this demo! The music on it takes us back to the 80’s / early 90’s, when bands like Treblinka, Nihilist, Asphyx and Vader were releasing their classic demos with music, which obviously influenced Graveyard Ghoul very much! Of course, due to the atmosphere of “Necrocult” and some of its riffs and vocals, you can even find some traces of black metal (vide Mayhem’s “Deathcrush” and the mentioned Behemoth demo)… But that’s not really the point. The most important thing is that Graveyard Ghoul plays really cool archaic metal of death and with four songs, including such killer tunes as “Hexenhammer” and “Necrocult”, they nailed it perfectly. I really like the demo and can say that Graveyard Ghoul turns into one of the most promising, yet very, very underground, death metal bands in Germany. “Necerocult” is limited to a small quantity of 50 copies only, so getting it might be difficult by now, but I do recommend it anyway. Support those two bastards, bang your head and keep the ancient feeling alive!

Final rate: 85/100