Singapore’s Nechbeyth have been around since 2001, but they have never been a band interested in flooding the underground with release after release. A handful of demos eventually led to their 2011 full-length ‘Blood.Axis.Domination’, followed three years later by ‘Coerce Creed’, and listening to this record makes that patience understandable. This is not music built around trying to impress anyone. It is stripped-down, hostile Black/Death Metal played with the kind of single-minded aggression that has always been at the heart of the Singapore underground.
‘Coerce Creed’ gets things moving with ‘Intro + KSMT Oath’, starting with an ominous atmosphere before the drums and guitars gradually bring the record into focus. Once ‘Ruination Conquest’ kicks in, there is very little left to interpret. Israfil’s guitars are constantly moving between abrasive tremolo picking, ugly chord work and those primitive sounding riffs that give this kind of Black/Death Metal its character. The playing is not about showing off, but there is a lot more going on underneath the apparent chaos than you might notice on the first spin.
Narsamum’s drumming is another major part of the attack. The blasting is relentless, but the record does not simply sit at one speed from beginning to end. There are changes in pace and those slower passages give the faster sections considerably more impact. ‘Eradication Vertex’ and ‘Coerce Axiom’ are particularly vicious, with the guitars and drums almost fighting for space while Zavael spits out his vocals somewhere in the middle of the whole mess.
And those vocals are exactly what this record needs. Zavael does not sound polished or overly controlled. His delivery moves between harsh Black Metal screams and deeper Death Metal growls, giving the songs a suitably deranged character. The vocals sit naturally within the music rather than being placed over the top of it, which helps maintain the claustrophobic feel of the recording.
What really works about ‘Coerce Creed’ is that Nechbeyth understand the difference between sounding raw and simply sounding badly recorded. There is plenty of dirt and abrasion in the production, but the individual instruments remain audible enough for the riffs and drumming to make their impact. It is certainly not a polished production, nor should it be. The rough edges are part of the record’s identity.
The closing ‘Lynch Directive + Outro’ is probably the most interesting track of the bunch. There is more room in the riffing here, with slower, heavier sections giving way to the familiar blast-driven assault. It shows that Nechbeyth were capable of creating more than just a continuous wall of noise. There is structure underneath the violence, and that makes the EP more memorable than many records that fall into the same War Metal territory.
There is inevitably going to be talk of Impiety, Blasphemy, Conqueror and Bestial Warlust when discussing Nechbeyth, especially considering where they come from and the musical territory they occupy. But ‘Coerce Creed’ does not feel like some Singaporean tribute act trying to recreate somebody else’s glory days. The influences are obvious, yet the record has its own identity, particularly in the way the guitars balance Black Metal abrasion with heavier Death Metal riffing.
For a band that had already been active for more than a decade by this point, ‘Coerce Creed’ sounds like a record made by musicians who knew exactly what they wanted to do and had absolutely no interest in dressing it up for wider consumption. It is ugly, hostile and uncompromising without becoming completely shapeless.
Singapore has produced plenty of Extreme Metal over the decades, but Nechbeyth occupy their own corner of that history. ‘Coerce Creed’ remains a strong example of what happens when a band takes the rawest elements of Black Metal and Death Metal and refuses to dilute them.
A nasty little piece of Singaporean Black/Death Metal that still sounds mean after all these years.
