Italy has never been short of strange and genuinely underground Metal, but Necromass belong to that early breed that seemed to operate in their own dark corner rather than simply following whatever was happening elsewhere in Europe. Formed in Florence in 1992, they were among the early Italian bands to embrace Black Metal as a primary language, and by the time ‘Mysteria Mystica Zofiriana’ appeared in 1994 they had already built themselves a small but unmistakable identity within the underground.
There is something very different about this record compared with the Scandinavian material that was dominating the conversation at the time. Necromass certainly understood the coldness and hostility expected from Black Metal, but there is a heavier occult and Death Metal presence underneath it, giving the riffs a much more physical character. The guitars aren’t simply a wall of thin tremolo picking thrown against blastbeats. There is weight here, with riffs that move between primitive aggression, sinister mid-paced passages and darker melodic sections without losing that filthy early ’90s character.
The production works particularly well because it hasn’t been polished into oblivion. Everything has enough definition to hear what the four musicians are doing, yet the record still carries that rough underground edge that makes early Italian Black Metal so appealing. The drums have plenty of presence, the guitars retain their bite and the bass isn’t completely swallowed by the rest of the band. It sounds like an actual Metal record rather than a modern attempt to recreate an imaginary 1993 recording.
What really holds ‘Mysteria Mystica Zofiriana’ together is the atmosphere. Necromass understood that darkness doesn’t necessarily come from playing at maximum speed for thirty minutes. The slower sections and strange atmospheric passages give the faster material more impact, while the vocal approach adds another layer of ugliness without becoming some exaggerated theatrical performance. There is a ritualistic quality running through the album, but it never completely overwhelms the Metal itself.
The title track and ‘Sodomatic Orgy Of Hate’ are particularly strong examples of where the band were heading, while the lengthy ‘Black Mass Intuition’ gives the album room to breathe without turning into pointless experimentation. Even the shorter pieces contribute to the overall flow rather than feeling like filler inserted between the proper songs.
And this is where Necromass separate themselves from countless second-rate early Black Metal acts. They had enough awareness of the genre’s traditions to understand where they came from, but they weren’t content simply reproducing the same Norwegian formula. There is Death Metal in the blood, there is traditional Metal in the riff construction, and there is a distinctly Italian sense of occult atmosphere that gives the whole thing its own character.
‘Mysteria Mystica Zofiriana’ isn’t a record that needs some exaggerated claim about changing the history of Black Metal. It didn’t. What it did was establish Necromass as one of the more interesting underground Italian acts of the period, and thirty years later it still sounds like a band that had its own strong identity.
For anyone digging beyond the standard Scandinavian canon, this is exactly the sort of release worth uncovering. Not because it tries to compete with the famous names, but because it shows just how much was happening underneath the surface of European Black Metal during those early years.
