REVIEW: NECRO DEATHMORT – MUSIC OF BLEAK ORIGIN

Necro DeathMort
Music of Bleak Origin
Distraction Records

It is a classic move, the use of a double tautology to signal the requisite capacity for irony required to assume metal’s patently ridiculous iconography. In fact it’s not dissimilar to calling yourself ‘Cash Money’, and shows the mixture of both distance and – pardon the pun – investure required to simultaneously be part of a genre, while also pointing towards its inherently juvenile concerns. A two-piece, who in 2009 garnered some hype as a sort of electronic doom-metal cross-over act with their debut release This Beat is Necrotronic, Necro DeathMort have accrued a degree of coinage as a band that revel in a form of genre transformation.

For those who haven’t been paying attention – and perhaps you can be forgiven, dear Bonafide reader, for this particular oversight – doom/drone-metal has undergone a form of renaissance, thanks in part by the work of such bands as Sun O))), whose exercise in genre has taken them into increasingly wonderful and strange territory, culminating in 2009′s Monoliths and Dimensions. Necro DeathMort have clearly been paying close attention, as the sustained power chords that open ‘Jaffanaut’ testify. Much of the window dressing for the album is made up of metal’s iconography and instrumentation, however it is supplemented by a combination of electronic bells and whistles, best exemplified by the squelches that compliment the grinding bass of ‘Temple of Juno’.

Music of Bleak Origin is a peculiar mix of elements, and it seems to struggle to sustain itself for any period of time. The formula can work very effectively when stripped of excess; the ceiling fan beat of ‘For Your Own Good’ throbs menace without seeming over-wrought, yet elsewhere the album feels hindered by its need to constantly restate its intent. The success of Sun O))) was in part due to their slowing of components to tectonic pace, forcing the listener to pay attention. Necro DeathMort seem to want to flurry through their gestures with the speed of an overly stimulated child at their school play. The wonderfully harmonic feedback that closes ‘Blizzard’ and opens ‘The Heat Death of Everything’ should be a stand-out moment, instead it is given short shrift in the face of a set of histrionic guitar chords. It all works, and sometimes it even succeeds, but ultimately Music of Bleak Origin feels like a missed opportunity to really push the barriers of genre, rather than just re-combine them in a slightly unfamiliar manner. There are moments that recall Massive Attack’s Mezzanine – albeit stripped of the original album’s hydroponic paranoia – no bad thing in itself, but to have an album over ten years old as a touchstone does not quite match the experimental rubric that Necro Deathmort’s press release seems so keen to convey.

Words: Andy Spragg

Filed under: Reviews by J.G.