Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Necronomicon (GER)
Label: El Puerto Records
Release: 2018
Rating: 4/5
Necronomicon are an old-school Teutonic thrash metal outfit from the German city of Lörrach, not to be confused with the krautrock band of the same name. »Unleashed Bastards« is their ninth studio album, and the band has actually been at it for 34 years. Count the punk beginnings too and it’s a whole 37. With a ten-year break between 1994 and 2004, Necronomicon are today synonymous with the absolute underground and one of the most carefully guarded German secrets of their genre. Unlike the other peers of their generation, especially the ones with global notoriety (Sodom, Destruction, Kreator), and as an »absolute underground« band, they were no less important in the global invasion of Teutonic thrash metal at the end of the eighties. You really can’t get more »underground« or »subterranean« than Necronomicon.
»Unleashed Bastards« follows the character of the band’s past life and work too, which is exactly what you’d expect. Evolution-wise, it hooks up most naturally with its predecessor »Pathfinder… Between Heaven And Hell« (2015), but on the new album the band stays completely true to everything they’ve built from the eighties to today. Without Freddy and his grit and stubbornness, Necronomicon would have vanished from the planet long ago. His vocals remain the most recognizable core trademark, the thing that defines the band’s whole musical rap sheet. That whole essence, the raw, ferociously bristling, tearing, uncompromising character that leaves you with a feeling of total defiance, would never grab so brilliantly alongside the otherwise devastating riff artillery and rhythmic rolling thunder if it weren’t fronted by a vocal as venomous as the one Freddy owns.
»Unleashed Bastards« leaves you with a feeling of rage and total revolt. Just like the title of Total Rejection says, a track you can find on the band’s eighties »demo« tape. It’s been freshened up and re-recorded for the new album, bringing one more authentic link to the days of the band’s birth, when Necronomicon played punk and were actually still called Total Rejection.
What’s going on in Unleashed Bastards is that restrained, primal, unadulterated character of eighties thrash metal fury, only »refreshed« and revitalized in the studio with a few more years under its belt. Just a glance at the cover backs that up, since it brings together all the band’s iconography, the artistic milestones of the road they’ve traveled, going all the way back to the debut »Necronomicon« (1986).
Over 51 minutes of music is maybe a touch too much for such an ambitious piece of work, since stylistically you’ve got the band’s whole deal figured out quickly. After one or two tracks. On the new album, Necronomicon keep on delivering all that burning, high-octane rage, anger, untamed energy, grit and real savagery, and they actually channel the finest moments carved into metal by the trail of Teutonic thrash. The guitar phrases offer an average helping of variety. It’s almost needless to add that they’re of course built on half-step tuning, with the vocals hogging a huge amount of space, which often pushes the guitar soloing into the background, or to put it another way, into an inferior position. The album is full of shorter but concise instrumental guitar bits, and Necronomicon have also concretely matured over the years, putting more attention on musicality in their later days (three-part harmonies in the intros and outros).
One for fans of Teutonic thrash, and also Overkill, early Slayer, and let’s not forget those complex, hard-to-pin-down thrash metal doctors of the era, Switzerland’s Coroner! »Unleashed Bastards« will gratefully scrub out your ear canals, but for anyone unprepared for this mouthful of an ominous, merciless invasion of old-school European thrash riffs, it can cause permanent hearing damage, or at the very least a lasting trauma. Let’s hope this album gets the band onto European stages, because they deserve a proper showcase. Let’s not forget: thrash metal always grabs hardest and most authentically when it’s played »live« rather than on record, and that has definitely always been true of the cult heroes Necronomicon too.
Line-up
Volker “Freddy” Fredrich – vocals, guitar
Michael Kusch – guitar
Marco Lohrenz – bass guitar
Christopher Speich – drums
Production
Necronomicon
Tracklist
01. Burn And Fall
02. Leave The Lights On
03. Total Rejection
04. Malevolent
05. We Did We Do We Always Burning
06. Imperial
07. My Name Is Vengeance
08. Forbid Me For Living
09. Unleashed
10. Religion Live Fast
11. Personal Enemy
12. The Nightmare Continues
