Doppelgangers: Necrophagia

 

 

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Doppelgangers is a series dedicated to unearthing forgotten bands, who share the name with the more famous equivalents.

Every self-respecting Metal afficionado probably heard about the Necrophagia, probably the earliest pioneers of Death Metal, who themselves probably wanted to be seen as the originators of Horror Metal.

This Necrophagia, like majority of the Metal bands from USA, came from California. For a while they performed live as Necrophagia LA, for obvious reasons. They tried to operate as Nekroholocaust, which got a separate collection of recordings, and later as Nekroseizure.

To the biggest "success" of this version of Necrophagia, belongs the fact of being the literally first release on the infamous Wild Rags label, about whom I will probably write someday, namely, a self-titled mini-album in 1987, as a part of "Hardcore Demo Series".

And as a final legacy, we receive this compilation by Ripping Storm, gathering all original demos + Nekroseizure material from 2019 (so not so long ago, albeit I would prefer if the band just called it quits, there is enough of Metal reunions from the darkside).

Music is painfully mediocre, it's neither terrible, nor genius. You can listen to it, albeit without awe. Sometimes the band also gets too inspired by Slayer. I would define their style as Speed / Thrash, which gradually evolved into Death / Thrash over time. The first half has relativelly short songs and is to the point, while the latter has longer and more complex compositions, clocking near 5 minutes by average.

Despite the lack of fanfares, I still believe that it's worth listening to. Why? To get a taste of the development of Metal during the 80s / 90s, and to soak up in that atmosphere for good.