REVIEWED: Necrofier - 'Transcend Into Oblivion'

Legions of Dark Matter - Craig here with my first review for this website, and who better to start off with than the Texas, Houston American black metal band known as Necrofier. Here we have a blistering hour’s worth of ghoulish hellfire with their third brand new full-length album entitled: ‘Transcend Into Oblivion’, which is absolutely my kind of beverage. A hypnotic wave of blackened sorcery spells a furious meltdown of extreme firepower and blazing expertise, intercepting a bludgeoning whirlwind of savagely sonic speediness amongst a thumpy stampede of sturdy thuds which furnace a belting furore of harmonic assimilation within the first track ‘Fires of the Apocalypse, Light my Path I’.

‘Fires of the Apocalypse, Light my Path II’ enthrals listeners with this seamless fabrication of belting yet suffocating tonality that showcases Christian Larson’s sulphurously riveting barrage of ripping shreds and foreboding gutturals which flamboyantly roar with soaring distinction, rifting through with perverse intention to say the least as a twinning maelstrom synergetically showcases stern stability that transpires through with towering precision from secondary bastion: Semir Özerkan who engages in a captivating diligence in thumping rhythmic solidity… rollicking through with symbolic wrath that manifests through with a bulldozing aesthetic - especially with the ethereal symbolism that’s mystifyingly embedded whilst mesmerising and majestic all round.

‘Fires of the Apocalypse, Light my Path III’ flourishes through with steamrolling malice amongst a moody complexity in symphonic melodies, trailblazing repugnancy that’s fuelled with lunatic comprehension. Venomous eeriness conjures up a fierce distinction in bombarding a monolithic malignancy with the help of Mat Aleman’s flickering forge in bass artillery; he just stomps with rambunctious meatiness that’s monstrously melodious and visceral to boot. Tremolo bestiality surges with sinister stability, masquerading with monolithic but nefarious blasphemy and intense elements that implement weighty combustion of synthetic plethora. As circling guitars topple with filling hyperblasts amongst a snarly repertoire of vocals that experiments this empyreal obscenity in gurgly heft.

‘Behold the Birth of Ascension’ starts off with an interlude-style dread section that materialises this macabre pianist portion, where a nuance of choral keys make for another ceremonial shrine of apprehension and morbid lust for that blood, fire, death and hate motif that enriches one’s soul with melancholic conviction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDQKWpcDl9r-M&v=QKWpcDl9r-M

Momentously rumbling with renegade pursuit and a spiralling but exhilarating jamboree of riveting crescendos; Dobber Beverly slams his set with steely gnarliness, distilling a pulsating slab of stampeding smacks that will marvel through you with immense calamity. ‘Servants of Darkness, Guide my Way I’ surges with more organic substance and distinguished complexity in uptempo, chasmic diabolism. Endured with a radical foundation in borderline heft and exhilarating but dark insanity, immersively gripping you with a deathly array of ominous trepidation that slogs through with this luciferian trope on bombastic harmonies that’s barbaric but piledriving in every meaning of meticulous profanity.

‘Servants of Darkness, Guide my Way II’ and ‘...Guide My Way III’ compile more hauntingly enduring hymns of foreboding but intoxicating instrumental darkness; where throughout the record a monotonous tonality mixes a quaint harbouring of choir-esque vocalisation amidst an epic boundary of gnarly yet symphonic mayhem - not quite orchestral yet more jarring with demonic atmosphere that can be ambient at times but more so killer than anything. Harnessing a very groovy alignment of tempestuous squalls that transition towards this persistence of otherworldly melodies that’s so bewitching that you can feel the glaring but doomy ruthlessness embedded as everyone playing here mesmerises the listener with pounding yet concretely gritty songwriting and musicianship that’s triggering and symbolic in every way.

‘Mystical Creation of Enlightenment’ is another guitar striving but conceptual style intersection that serves more as a breather until more infernal mephistophelian distortion frenzies your diabolical needs furthermore.

‘Horns of Destruction: Lift my Blade I’, ‘...Blade II’ and ‘...Blade III’ fabricate more flourishing volatility, opening with this gripping rumbling of reverberating cadence, until an enigmatic resonance resounds eardrums with ferocious black metal etiquette that defines this genre with blackened and concise integrity. More operatic hums intrude until this vivacious bombardment compiles more superfluous apocalypse that distils an intricate style of tunesmithing of profusely robust raucousness, merging this dynamically dextrous sustenance of spiritual warfare and shivering waverness that will possess your very soul.

Closing with ‘Towards the Necrofier’, an eponymous chanted ritual in Scandinavian profanity reverberates this echoing roll of pounding drums and demonic but monotonous sacrilege, where this radiant spoken-word mantra war cries the words: “Gods of fire, gods of death” which just empowers me with emperor-like lustre.

Overall, ‘Transcend into Oblivion’ will transform you into this temporal fixation of thematic profundity that comprises a great introduction to Necrofier as well as black metal in a nutshell, should you have not been recommended this moderately high in regard plateau of well-curated phantoms in BM form. Definitely do check it out.

9/10

‘Transcend Into Oblivion’ is out now via Metal Blade Records