From the opening riff of "Warped in Entrails," one can see where Necrotum has set their targets for Defleshed Exhumation, bringing together heavy death with techy and skilled arrangements. The tone of the lead guitar pulls the phrasing out of the muck and gives a grim visage of a skeletal guide describing the impending doom that lies beyond the realm. Coupled with gruff vocals and propulsive drums, the first track on this album really hits home and sets the stage for the techy onslaught that follows. Clocking in around thrity-six or so minutes, one can gather that each song is properly set to deliver its doom and wrap it up before getting stale and long in the tooth. Defleshed Exhumation plays like a very familiar album, but certainly adds a nice uniqueness to its composition that helps separate it from the pack and keeps it from being merely an old school clone. For example, the opening bass and spotlights in "Dissolved in the Flesh Pits" add really interesting moments of inspiration and help to break up the brutal onslaught. The lead and rhythm guitars work well together, weaving together a heavy crunch with a spidery, eerier tone, giving the listener much to track while listening through the album. The bass and drums move forward together as a unit, controlling the pace and keeping the Defleshed Exhumation moving and grooving. There are also backing vocals here and there that add another element to the storytelling and increasing the creep factor quite a bit.

 

Necrotum has been very busy since their 2020 debut, and their increased focus on technicality, prog, and arrangement shows that this has been time very well spent. Not content to rest on their laurels and churn out clone after clone, Defleshed Exhumation gives the death metal world a great look at a hungry and hard working new band. While still playing to their inspirations, one can see that creativity and boundary pushing will be in the future for this trio, and expanding the confines of the death metal genre looks to be their upcoming conquest.