It's hard to mention Necrot without acknowledging their axial status within the Bay Area's thriving death metal scene. The Oakland, CA, trio are a "members of"-type act that shares personnel with local siblings like Vastum, Acephalix, Saviors, and Mortuous. All of those bands play some variety of old-school death metal, and after a series of well-received demos, Necrot carved their niche within the scene on 2017's punk-influenced Blood Offerings. The record drew complimentary comparisons to Bolt Thrower and Obituary, and tours with Bay Area legends Exhumed and contemporary Phoenix comrades Gatecreeper followed.
All of this is to say that Necrot are one of the most promising bands in modern death metal, and there was a lot of hype leading up to their sophomore record, Mortal. Fortunately, this album takes a shrieking buzzsaw to expectations across the board, as it's arguably the first stellar death metal album of this chaotic new decade. Compared to Blood Offerings, which was lovably dirty and jagged at the seams, Mortal is a much grander and tighter project. They once again worked with High On Fire producer Greg Wilkinson, but this time they enlisted the legendary Alan Douches—whose range spans Cannibal Corpse, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Angel Olsen, and Xiu Xiu—to master it. Mortal is still a tried-and-true death metal record that's ugly as hell in all the right ways, but there's a crispness to the production that takes it beyond the greasy club setting and into the league of big-venue metal acts.
Perhaps Mortal's greatest strength is its pacing. The record starts out strong with crushers like "Your Hell" and "Dying Life," but the solos, riffs, and decimating rhythms only get nastier and more technical as the tracklist continues. Between the titanic solo in "Asleep Forever," the iconic lead riff in "Sinister Will," and the savage swing in the middle of "Malevolent Intentions," the back half is significantly stronger than the front, making it impossible to put down or tune out while listening. Whether you're a veteran metalhead or a tangential headbanger, Mortal is an essential new release from one of the genre's latest and greatest. © Eli Enis/Qobuz