Goreaphobia

Apocalyptic Necromancy

Dark Decent Records 

3.5

The first few minutes of “Apocalyptic Necromancy” made me want to rip the headphones out of my ears in horror and disgust with this horrible buzz-saw clicking sound in the middle of the track. At first I thought I just had a bunk copy of the CD with a scratch in it or something. But alas when I put the headphones back on, I realized that this horrible sound wasn’t a glitch in the track; it was an attempt at a faux skipping effect gone horribly wrong. Now as much as I love some Goreaphobia, they simply weren’t able to pull this effect off well. Actually the only band that comes to mind that did the faux skipping thing well live and on wax was The Mars Volta on “Frances the Mute”. And lets face it Goreaphobia is awesome but they’re no Mars Volta. The effect is so bad, the it put me off on the listening to the rest of the album. Every time I was looking for something to listen to on my phone, I would look at “Apocalyptic Necromancy” and think Jesus fuck the whole album is going to be like the horrible title track, and I really can’t deal with this right now. 

It took more than a few weeks for me to get past the fear of the ear splitting horror of the title track to get to the rest of “Apocalyptic Necromancy”, and I wish I could say that I was treated to mind melting insanity once I got past the dreaded title track. Instead what I got was passable Doom Metal with some thrash and punk influences thrown in for good measures. Goreaphobia is a more than decent Death/Thrash band after all, so getting lyrics that whisper to you to ditch the social mores of everything that you were taught to hold dear isn’t exactly ground breaking stuff; it’s just par for the course. The day I hear the Death Metal band that doesn’t make me want to punch Jesus and my high school principle in the face I will probably be done with metal as a genre. Luckily “Apocalyptic Necromancy” has more than enough principal punching and Jesus hate flowing within it’s tracks to keep me more than entertained, but that’s really all it has going for it in the end. If you’re a die hard Goreaphobia fan, by all means go out, get this shit and crank it to 11! If you’re just a passing fan that wants something loud to bang your head to, go out, get this shit and crank it to 11! But if you’re looking for an album that has more substance than random evil, you may do better with something more cerebral.