The Upstarts: Nekromer

 

 

SWITCH TO POLISH

The Upstarts series was initially supposed to present younger bands, alas over time it became something of an overall mirror to "XXI century", as many of these bands either are already defunct, or became veterans themselves. And sometimes I just feel like writing about certain phenomenons that happened after the fall of twin towers.

Nekromer in a way represents the new century, as they are fully the child of its era, when the internet raised another generation of people. It's not a band particularly respected among Metalheads, but quite the opposite, they used to have a dedicated anti-fanbase, who were following them mostly for laugh. I'm not going to either scorn, or ridicule the band, but rather, to write my observations about culture.

During their lifetime, which were somewhere around 2007-2017 (the date of their last post on faceboob), this Silesian formation eagerly used various forms of social media, for example youdupe, where they presented their rehearsals, or were just fooling around, or did some cameos with music journalists, or known musicians, like Vogg (Decapitated), to promote themselves.

Their first efforts were closer to then-popular Behemoth style, and their debut album was supposed to be called "Okvlta" (with mandatory "v" instead of "u"). I managed to dig up this information through the defunct profile on myspace from 2009 r. (nothing dies on the internet). The material got later deleted due to the negative feedback, albeit I suspect that some of the riffs were later reused on their proper debut. To be fair, I wouldn't mind listening to it, and see whether the criticism was deserved.

Ultimately, Nekromer decided to switch the tactics, and just started bringing up various different ingredients for their soup, not quite knowing how the result will turn out. The band started viewing themselves, as "Hardcore Death Metal", and as such their first and only CD, "Pray For Enemies" (2013), released through a label run by a rapper popular in Poland (Rychu "Peja"). It is quite a tough nut to crack, as while it goes extreme, it's doing well, but there are minor elements that are not gelling well with the rest, like adding a pickle to a puffy chocolate cream.

The basis is Melodic Death Metal, with an attempts at technicality, sometimes with epicness and quite developed riffs, while other times there is a fist in the face through rhytmical Groove / Thrash, with occasional links to Hardcore / Rap, and even oriental / ambient-orchestral interludiums. There is singing, shouting, but most of all, shrieky growling. As you can see, the music is busy, and therefore it lacks some kind of order that would benefit the compositions. With that said, the first three numbers (discounting the intro) are probably me favorite overall.

And while the Metalheads at best disregarded the album, the subculture closer to Rap were more willing to accept it. It's also very possible that for many of the latter, it might have been the only Metal CD in their collection.

The band tried to follow it with a sequel called "Trill", and with another shift, this time towards Alt Metal / Rock with a strong presence of electronics and modern rap genres. Many videoclips got shot to promote it, like this one:

 

...and that was it, as since then Nekromer kinda disbanded, without releasing "Trill", and the leader of the band, with a nick "Hellfield", started his solo career, moving to "Trap" (I don't know, I don't care), with average views on youdope per song going well above millions, so there is a happy end of sorts to this whole debacle.

Personally, the crew did not invoke any negative feelings in me, and the music was just decent in my opinion. Metalheads are a bunch, who can quickly sniff out whether someone is "true" or a "poseur". And if they make up their mind, it's more or less finito for a band. And that's more or less what happened in this case. Honestly, I can easily name much worse bands, which received undeserved acclaim, alas de gustibus non est disputandum.

The whole story made me reminiscent about my own experiences in my own band. Thankfully, my output is not avalaible to listen to anywhere, except my own hard drive, but I am certain that I would also got shit on, despite not creating controversial things genre-wise. Albeit whether they are laughing at you, or with you depends a lot on your own character, and the consistency in actions. But this is not a blog about personal development, so let's end it here.