NECROPHAGIA — Season of the Dead (review)

NECROPHAGIA — Season of the Dead album cover Album · 1987 · Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
UMUR
"Season of the Dead" is the debut full-length studio album by US death metal act Necrophagia. The album was released through New Renaissance Records in February 1987, making it one of the earliest examples of a death metal album released through a label. Hell, it was even released a couple of months before "Scream Bloody Gore" by Death. Necrophagia had however been active in the US extreme metal underground and tape trading scene since they were founded in 1983, and had released several demos before releasing this debut album. A band history which should probably earn them the title as one of the originators of the death metal style along side acts like Death/Mantas, Massacre, Executioner (later Obituary), Morbid Angel, Death Strike, Possessed, and Deceased (just to mention a few of the heavily influential bands from the early years of death metal).

As the case is with many of the earliest death metal releases, the line between being a particularly raw sounding thrash metal release, and being a more brutal death metal ditto, is a bit blurry regarding "Season of the Dead". Personally I think I lean more towards calling it the former. The vocals are raw, but not really growling. They are actually quite odd sounding, as it sounds like Killjoy is talking/whispering the vocals while snarling. He sounds a bit out of breath, and the vocals ultimately aren´t that powerful. The riffs are basically raw and primitive sounding thrash metal riffs, and the same can be said about the drumming style. The whole thing is pretty lo-fi produced, murky, and dark sounding, which probably adds to the general view that "Season of the Dead" is a death metal album.

If the cover artwork featuring feasting zombies didn´t give it away, song titles like "Insane for Blood", "Bleeding Torment", and "Mental Decay" probably do. Yes... the lyrical content and the general image of the band is gore/horror themed.

If you like your thrash/death metal as raw and straight forward as possible you´ll probably greatly enjoy "Season of the Dead" and viewed upon a bit more objectively, it is in fact a decent early thrash oriented death metal release, but it´s neither the most originals sounding, nor the most interesting release from those days, and other than being incredibly influential regarding the development of the death metal genre, there are quite a few albums with a similar history, that I´d recommend before this one. The skill of the performers, the murky sound production, and the very standard quality songwriting aren´t enough to warrant more than a 3 star (60%) rating.
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Vim Fuego wrote:
more than 2 years ago
RIP Killjoy. Great gory fun!

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