Review EXMORTUS ‘Necrophony’

Well, there are so many bands that you can never have them all on your radar. One of those bands for me is Exmortus from Whittier, California. However, these guys are anything but a new band. The group has already released five albums and with ‘Necrophony’ they are about to launch a new album.

‘Necrophony’ is the band’s first album for Nuclear Blast and it contains eleven songs and an intro called ‘Masquerade’. The latter opens the new record and it is apparent from this instrumental that Exmortus definitely have a preference for neoclassic metal.

‘Masquerade’ is the prelude to the massive ‘Mask of Red Death’ which is definitely pleasing with its galloping rhythm and a higher tempo.

On the further journey through the album one can find fast neckbreakers like ‘Oathbreaker’, ‘Storm of Strings’ and ‘Beyond the Grave’. All three songs merge death and thrash metal influences and there is a tremendous energy that bursts out of the songs.

However, Exmortus also succeed in the more epic moments. The eight-minute ‘Darkest of Knights’ should be mentioned in this context and also ‘Children of the Night’ belongs to this category of tunes. Even though the songs are not very different from the other tracks on the album when it comes to the basic principle, there are some unexpected twists that make each of them varied and interesting. In between there are always neo-classical inspired guitar parts that contrast slightly with the harsh vocals of Jardan Gonzalez.

With ‘Overture’ you get another instrumental served, which leads to the title track. The track that gives the album its name is a fast metal track that embodies the aforementioned trademarks and thus represents the album well.

Exmortus deliver on ‘Necrophony’ a very solid album, which is also provided with a very powerful sound. Here one can do little wrong, but it is also not the big wow moments that you should expect.