{"id":101378,"date":"2023-08-25T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T23:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=101378"},"modified":"2023-08-30T12:45:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T11:45:34","slug":"album-review-exmortus-necrophony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-exmortus-necrophony\/","title":{"rendered":"EXMORTUS – Necrophony (2023) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXMORTUS
Necrophony<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nNuclear Blast (2023)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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After a five year silence California neo-classical thrashers Exmortus return with their darkest album yet. Still retaining those Yngwie Malmsteen flashes, Necrophony<\/em> boasts a harsher vocal approach and enough ripping riffs to cause whiplash.<\/p>\n

There has always been a delicious crunch to the Exmortus sound and that crispness continues as the band opens up their sixth release with \u2018Masquerade\u2019, an instrumental that flickers with Gothic wizardry before bleeding into the equally shred heavy \u2018Mask Of Red Death\u2019 with its theatrical tirades and vocal rasps from the only surviving original member Jadran Gonzalez. This is stern metal spattered with tumbling bass lines, galloping percussion and those ever flowing brain scrambling leads.<\/p>\n

From the viewpoint of a metal purist there is so much to like here; the general atmosphere is brooding even with such a nimble metallic display. Instrumental \u2018Storm Of Strings\u2019 (a cover rendition of new age artist Yanni\u2019s song \u2018The Storm\u2019, which was based off of the great Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi\u2019s concertos \u2018The Four Seasons\u2019) epitomizes the opus as staggering melodies wash over you and provide a surprising amount of comfort considering their ability to bamboozle.<\/p>\n

The riffs cascade like endless waterfalls of steel as melodic hooks are applied to the groove \u2018Test Of Time\u2019 where the fret work astounds. \u2018Prophecy\u2019 channels Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s classic \u2018Crazy Train\u2019 with its cutting axe work, \u2018Oathbreaker\u2019 hammers and swirls and \u2018Beyond The Grave\u2019 zips with such ferocity. However, sandwiched between such a barrage is the majestic and epic \u2018Darkest Of Knights\u2019, a grandiose statement where each member excels to form a network of devious trails.<\/p>\n

There is no doubting the talent and showmanship here, it just depends on whether you, the listener, can stomach an hour of such frenzy and fire. With less repetition and more darkened layers, Exmortus has returned with something decidedly more Gothic, like a neo-thrash Mercyful Fate only with extra dollops of nerdness. However, it works because it still remains a vibrant thrash outing, just one that doesn\u2019t necessarily provide instant access to its contours.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EXMORTUSNecrophony Nuclear Blast (2023)Rating: 8\/10 After a five year silence California neo-classical thrashers Exmortus return with their darkest album yet. Still retaining those Yngwie Malmsteen flashes, Necrophony boasts a harsher vocal approach and enough ripping riffs to cause whiplash. There has always been a delicious crunch to the Exmortus sound and that crispness continues as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5481],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-exmortus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101379,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101378\/revisions\/101379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}