‘Defleshed Exhumation’ had me thinking ’90s Death Metal pretty much immediately. There’s a lot of that dark Incantation kind of sound buried in here, but the longer I listened, the more I noticed Necrotum moving around rather than sticking to one thing.
This album is way groovier than I expected. They’ll get into these big chunky riffs where the vocals and chugs actually give me some Cannibal Corpse vibes, then suddenly pull everything back into something much more haunting. Those slower, eerie passages were some of my favorite parts. They give the album a bit of atmosphere without taking away from how heavy it is.
I also kept noticing the bass. It isn’t constantly fighting to be heard, but when they let it come through, there are some really nice grooves in there. It adds another little wrinkle to an album that already does a good job of changing things up.
That’s probably what I enjoyed most about this. Necrotum never really let me settle into thinking I knew exactly where the next section was going. You might get something fast and nasty, then a big chug, a bass groove or one of those haunting passages. Somehow none of it feels out of place. Most importantly, no matter which direction they go, ‘Defleshed Exhumation’ stays heavy the entire way through.
