Band Origin: Stockholm, Sweden
Genre: Death Metal
Release Date: 1997
Album downloads only available to members
Album Info / Review
**Necrophobic – “Darkside”**
*Album Review*
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### A brief back‑story
Necrophobic hails from Sweden, a breed that came to life in the early ’90s with a raw, harrowing phrasing that fused the ferocity of Swedish death metal with an undercurrent of more atmospheric, mood‑driven elements – think of a steel‑clad framework wrapped in iron‑clad darkness. “Darkside” is one of those lesser‑pedestal records in their catalog that deflects the roar of their debut with a distant, almost mythic tone. The record sits in a liminal zone: as if the band decided to hold a black‑metal ritual inside a cathedral of death‑metal orchestration.
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### Soundscape: Big, tight, almost cavernous
– **Guitar work**: Gibson BSG and custom tremolo‑centric rigs dominate. The guitars sleep inside a thick wall of distortion – serrated, snarling – and then split into twin leads when the riffs don’t need the full blast. There’s a subtle, crystalline clean slap‑back in the layers that makes the chords feel like they’re taking a breath before the onslaught resumes. The guitars strike a balance: they’re not moving like the relentless defensive barrage of classic death metal; they’re paced, almost deliberate, making each strike feel inevitable.
– **Bass**: A slim, mid‑range rumble that threads with nothing but the drone of the kick and the subtle hum of the rhythm guitar’s sub‑bass. The bassist doesn’t merely support the trio, they ride the percussive lines to introduce a meaningfully progressive feel in the darker arrangements.
– **Drums**: snare‑heavy, with a high‑frequency crack that gives the tom‑beat a vulture‑like chirp. The double‑kick is punchy, but it utilizes a medium, almost ‘mid‑time’ velocity. There are places where the drums are more than merely timekeepers; they initiate atmosphere, like the clang of a distant bell before a slow feature entrance.
– **Vocals**: Death‑growls rattle the percussion and accentuate the grit. You hear the occasional demonic rasp in the choruses, adding a kaleidoscopic layer to the barbs.
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### Atmosphere: A murky, mystic descent
The entire record feels like a dive into a medieval tomb chamber. The opening “Enter the Void” sets the stage with an ominous guitar intro that drips with reverb. The haunting chorus in “Pitch Black Sun” moves like an argument between wind and stone. Between the tracks there is a faint hint of synthesizers, a faint nudge of stave pizzicato that sets a new level of depth. The atmosphere isn’t superimposed; it is part of the composition.
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### Riff‑ability: Technical but thematic
– **Opening riff “Enter the Void”** works like a key phrase that has a simple hook and loops through to lead to the chorus. It manages to catch the left-eye-defining index needed to make the theme memorable, even as the pitch is pitched down. Many late‑80s guitarist and songwriters will say something like “you need that one strong hook.” That precisely what “Enter the Void” does.
– **“The Quiet Chaos”** saw a mixture of jungle‑groomed intimately friction > that we see in playing minor. Here you get a “Evil Twin” certain moves combined up to a swirling crescendo.
– **In “Echoes of Earth”,** basically a 5‑minute progressive section that blends an iterative riff structure with the bass line and drums. The slower tempo even allowed the guitarist to create melodic phrases.
This disarray tends to work in these tracks to keep the listeners working well with their minds.
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### Production quality
– This album is the kind of polished release many modern extreme metal can be. The track counsel there is layered in an same mix ― the layers have a tight upper ant synced sound. The guitars are powerful but NOT overwhelming, especially when they bleed out into the produced snare. There is a careful approach where the subtext between the tracks explains how it shades the dynamic connected together, like a power level on the final stage.
– The guitar’s lower frequencies are slightly exluded at the end to avoid a muddy smoothness. This makes the hum a clear new experience.
– The new style is a whole set of details that draws from the older’s style. The best part is that the record can skip the noise, “reverberation mixtures”.
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### Overall impression: a dread–filled framework
Overall “Darkside” is not one of the band’s standout releases in terms of importance. But when you get deeply lost in their tracks, a certain heaviness surfaces that can make the listening experience feel reminiscent of a deep, audible sky. This album focuses on aggressive grooves while blending a few crowd-pleasing and melodic pieces in an intimate paradise.
Despite certain dated riffs, “Darkside” brings depth to Necophobic’s soundbox and lets you hear their progression.
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