Necrodeath — Black as Pitch

Something new from something old! It's surprising that in 16 years of existence Necrodeath have only released 4 albums. They are considered a cult band in their homeland, Italy, and for a good reason: they do this death-thrash thing very well!

I'd be inclined to compare them to "Just Cause" and "Punchdrunk" since they play the same style of thrash metal and seem to have similar roots and influences but Necrodeath has a more pronounced retro feel where the two aforementioned bands sound very modern and 'chunky'. You can hear the "Slayer" influences right away in "Red as Blood", the first song, and surprisingly that's not a bad thing. Maybe it's the fact that this band has been playing for so long, but they have integrated their influences really well and it would be dense to call them a mere "Celtic Frost", "Kreator" or "Dark Angel" rip off without taking into consideration their song crafting abilities (which are considerable for a riff based band). The vocals also contribute their part in making this band convincing enough to play in the big leagues; they are half-shouted half-screeched, a mix between thrash and black-metal, and the delivery goes from very fast (Tom Arya style but with a voice closer to Sin of Omission's front man or Darkane's first vocalist when he did his high pitched screech) to a relatively slow recitation with a slightly deeper throaty voice.

There's not much to be said about the production: it's decent and competent, nothing to complain about. All the instruments can be heard, even the bass during the slower breaks, and the guitars have this nice crunchy sound so frequent on modern thrash albums. The drums sound good if a little triggered, but this is far from being something that would detract from the listening experience. In fact, I like their crisp sound, it goes very well with the fast tempos.

In conclusion, I'll just say that at the big metal convention (how geeky would that be) Necrodeath would deserve a seat at the "Excellent Thrash Metal" table even if they would stand out as impostors at the "100% Original" table.