J-Man Necrophagia, an American group formed in 1983, are often hailed as one of the first death metal bands. After releasing a handful of demos in the first half of the eighties, the quartet released their seminal debut album, Season of the Dead, in February of 1987 - a few months before Death's legendary Scream Bloody Gore. A "cult classic" is probably a good way to describe this unfortunately overlooked album, despite the amount of praise it receives in the underground extreme metal community. Once their 10-year hiatus came to an end in 1998, Necrophagia began regularly pumping-out albums to satisfy their dedicated following, and Deathtrip 69, the band's sixth full-length studio album, was released in May, 2011 by Season of Mist. Although the band's rather primitive death metal style isn't nearly as revolutionary as it was nearly thirty years ago, Deathtrip 69 is still an extremely fun and highly recommendable listen. Fans of the band, as well as old school death metal in general, should find plenty of enjoyment from this high-quality effort.

The music on Deathtrip 69 is very primitive old school death metal, often sounding much more like an extreme thrash release. This lacks many characteristics of a modern death metal release (most noticeably blast beats), but the crushing riffs and brutal vocals make it harsher than your average thrash release. Deathtrip 69 isn't a complete run-of-the-mill old school release, however. Eclecticism is embraced here, and the occasional use of acoustic guitar and keyboards help add some nice variation into the mix. The odd trailer-trash blues song "Death Valley 69", although not exactly my cup of tea, is also fairly unique. Deathtrip 69 isn't the most musically complex release out there, but there are a few difficult riffs and drum patterns that prove Necrophagia's worth as musicians. The production is a bit thin, but still certainly competent.

Deathtrip 69 is a high-quality release from Necrophagia that should satisfy the band's cult fanbase and beyond. I've had a really fun time experiencing this album over the last week, and although it may not be a revolutionary masterpiece, Deathtrip 69 is a damn good effort that comes highly recommended from me. If blood, guts, and zombies are topics of interest for you, it's certainly worth checking out! 3.5 stars are well-deserved for this highly-impressive, blood-soaked death trip.

Time Signature Suffering comes in sixsixsixes...

Genre: death thrash

Necrophagia are one of the earliest death metal bands, having been active, on and off, since the 80s, and even featured Phil Anselmo (under the apt pseudonym of Anton Crowley). Not surprisingly, their style on "Deathtrip 69" is just about as old school as it gets. In fact, it is old school that it is bordering on being more thrash metal than death metal - that is, Necrophagia seek back to death metal's earliest form when it was still very much anchored in thrash metal, form which it was largely derived originally.

This means an absence of blastbeats and hyper technical playing as well as loads of tremolo picking, which otherwise characterizes the genre today. Instead there are crushingly heavy riffs combined with faster thrashy riffs, all of which are kept relatively simple (although there are some odd harmonies and some hard-to-play guitar riffs every now and then)., and many of the guitar solos are more rock-ish and, sometimes, even melodic, than what fans of modern hi-tech death metal might be used to. Certain tracks are almost more crossover-like and contain elements from hardcore punk, such as "Kyra" and the title track. I actually think that thrash metal fans will enjoy this album immensely. Apart from the filler-like "A Funeral for Solange" and the odd road-trip song "Death Valley 69", this is all out thrash metal, although a track like the aptly titled "Tomb with a View" contains some slow and doom-ladden parts. Imagine if Carcass had made an album between "Heartwork" and "Swansong"... this is pretty much what that would have sounded like.

With songs about horror, murder, violence, splatter, gore and regurgitated guts, there's not much new in the lyrics department, and, while gore lyrics never really appealed to me, I suppose you can't really imagine Necrophagia singing about any other topic matters. And, of course, the harsh growled and snarled vocals suit the lyrical content quite well.

To this is primarily a thrash metal album, but, given the history of death metal, I can see why it would be considered a death metal release (I don't get why the label Season of Mist classify it as black metal though), and simply kicks ass (wearing shoes with metal spikes, rusty nails and razorblades on them).