Artist: Necrogore
Country: Italy
Label: Wrong Disk Records
Formats: Cassette EP
Year: 2023
Necrogore from Italy is a new band on the block of its country’s Death Metal scene, but while the band might be a new acquisition to the scene, its music is everything but new. On the contrary, Necrogore is knee-deep in Old School Death Metal. Old School Death Metal of the Swedish kind, to be exact.
The Italian trio very clearly lacks originality, making no effort to disguise their fondness for bands like Entombed, Nominon and Interment. ‘Digging From Below’ offers you a veritable barrage of heavy HM2-riffs, but, like Nominon for instance, manages to stay away from an overly one-dimensional world in which bands like Paganizer and other Rogga Johansson-infected bands roam. The tempos vary enough, with tasty up-tempo passages never being shunned, and the riffs are sufficiently catchy to make this EP’s 17 minutes a mini-feast for those who have a penchant for Death Metal done in the Swedish fashion. They also prove that you can still come up with a sledgehammer punch with minimal resources and without a shred of originality, something that the vast majority of bands in this particular niche genre fail to do. It’s all about good riffs, clear variation in tempo and good compositions, in short: it is about song-writing and those skills are abundantly clear not given to everyone and, unfortunately, not for sale.
With bands like Imperishable and now Necrogore, there is still hope on the horizon for fans of the addictive Swedish HM2-sound. For too long, the scene has been awash with mediocrity and poor imitations. Should the above appeal to you, this cassette EP (or demo) was released in 50 copies and is still available from the band.
