Necrovation - Breed Deadness Blood

 

NECROVATION - Breed Deadness Blood (BLOOD HARVEST - LP 2009)

“…Venomous, graceless essence, spawned by the absence of life…”

Seeing the currently happening resurrection of the Swedish sounding death metal which gave birth to so many new bands, but also made some older ones come back from the grave, it makes me proud and happy that I was a fan of this style for years and never felt bored by it, despite how popular or unpopular it was. If there was just Dismember left, when they recorded their “Death Metal” album, then it was OK for me. If Grave came back and Unleashed also, then it was fine for me too. And of course there were also Fleshcrawl, Centinex, Horrid and Vomitory. This is how many classically sounding, but not necessarily from Sweden, bands there were back then. But at the same time I was always looking for some new bands, which would add some freshness into the airless, filthy catacombs of Swedish death metal. And that came, when I discovered Repugnant back in the early 00’s. And soon after I got the “Curse of Aeons” demo from Kaamos in 2002, an LP and EP from Verminous and finally also “Ovations to Putrefaction” demo from Necrovation in 2004. Necrovation was an entity, which truly crushed me, I loved everything about their demo – the music, fact that it was released on tape (nowadays the tape also came back into the scene and more demos have been released on cassette in the past two years than in the whole decade!), the t-shirt which I made the trade for with the band… Yeah, I also did an interview with Necrovation around that time. Fuckin cool it was. Nowadays there are many bands, which are similar to Necrovation, some may be even better, but I still feel sort of nostalgia and have more special feelings towards this band. They clearly didn’t go with the stream, but played something they just worshipped and that counts twice (especially when comparing to what’s going on nowadays, when it’s so easy to come up with new old school band and get the recognition in the scene, even if you don’t really play the best metal ever!).

Following the mentioned “Ovations…” demo as well as a couple of 7”EPs, the time came when Necrovation unleashed their debut full length album, “Breed Deadness Blood”. With nine tracks on it (and only one, which was previously recorded on the demo), you can be sure there’s enough material this time to break your neck and cause some serious bloodshed. From the very first song it is pretty clear that Necrovation is not your average cut’n’paste the Dismember / Entombed riffs sort of band. No, actually in my opinion Necrovation is not really similar to those two legendary bands so much and if there are any Swedish death metal acts they may be taking the influences from, then they would probably be the early Nihilist, Grotesque, Merciless from “The Awakening” LP and maybe a slight hint of Carnage… but all soaked in Autopsy’s gore and filth with some additional “Abominations of Desolation” resemblances as well. Necrovation recaptures the feeling from the ancient death metal albums or demos in excellent way and I must admit that right from the opening song, “Dead Faith’s Purulence”, I worship their music.

Unlike many of their countrymen, Necrovation do not really tries to play too many of those more harmonious parts, concentrating rather on old school death metal mayhem and as such they do remind me what Verminous has done on their killer LP, “Impious Sacrilege”. Of course there may happen few slightly more melodic and catchy riffs (there’s one infectious melody in “Dead Faith’s Purulence” for instance), but they happen rather occasionally and so most of the “Breed Deadness Blood” is as putrid and ferocious as this sort of archaic death metal can only get. And thus it will constantly be crushing you with razor sharp riffs, chaotic guitar leads, vomiting vocals and pounding drums of doom. Necrovation shows the power of riffs and how important it is to create a specific, obscure atmosphere in this type of music. Old school death metal would sound not even half as great if it wasn’t creating such a dark mood and also if the production wasn’t so organic, raw, but not too primitive… and definitely not overproduced. On “Breed Deadness Blood” I have a feeling like all the right boxes were ticked and Necrovation brought all the best ingredients into one, damn deadly piece of death metal. There’s really absolutely NOTHING what I would desire to be done differently or what would be missing. If you want it to be fast and relentless, then there will be plenty of material, which will please you to… death (man, at few fast parts the music speeds up so much that it even has resemblances to the early Carcass!)! And if you like it to be more mid paced playing, much more into the origin of the Swedish old school death metal and Nihilist, then the title song as well as few other like “Seal the Gates” will be a thing for you. All in all, Necrovation did an awesome job here and “Breed Deadness Blood” is just a superb album. So, if you’re done with the archaeological excavation and know all the old bands, but still want to get to know some newer ones, which would be playing in similar way, then definitely Necrovation is one of the finest offers for you in my opinion.

Standout tracks: “Dead Faith's Purulence”, “Putrid Evocation”, “Death Salvation”, “Breed Deadness Blood”

Final rate: 90/100