The Ones from Hell

Straight from the infernal pits of French blackened death metal comes Necrowretch's latest, The Ones from Hell. I hadn't heard a lot of their material before, but this one is absolutely relentless, an echoing cascade of cold filth with surprisingly melodic shredding in the driver's seat. The listener gets a furiously pummeled by the drumming, with guitar work reminiscent of Dissection taking rhythm duties. Vocalist/guitarist Vlad, assisted by a vocal doubling effect with lots of echo, hoarsely shouts praises to the Prince of Darkness that are nearly incoherent but delivered with tremendous enthusiasm, his voice trailing off to a shriek towards the end of each verse. The title track is even more Dissection-esque, featuring the harmonized twin-guitar intros in 3/4 time that their influence favored; death metal influence here is more nuanced but comes out in the chunky riffing found on the eponymous Necrowretch. The listener gets no respite, even with the two instrumentals, which merely consist of more of the savagery with Vlad concentrating on his guitar instead of screaming. The dirty atmosphere remains, although the band has adopted a strong focus on Satanic blackness, and there's some technical strength buried under the overwhelming blast of extreme metal Necrowretch aims for; but this definitely will appeal most to those who want to be sonically beaten.