Band:	Necrophagia
Album:	Harvest Ritual Vol 1: Penance
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	2005
Guest review by:	Darkside Momo

01. The World, The Flesh, The Devil
02. Dead Skin Slave
03. Unearthed
04. Cadavera X
05. London 13 Demon Street
06. Return To Texas
07. Akumu
08. Stitch Her Further
09. Excommunicated
10. Harvest Ritual

Hello zombie lovers, flesh eaters and blood drinkers! This is the new Necrophagia for you!

Yes, the time to wait between Necrophagia's albums is reducing and it's all the better. Musically speaking, I would mostly qualify it as melodic black/death metal: black for atmosphere and dissonance (mostly due to the excellent keyboards), death for the voice and rythmic crushing parts. But that's not all: many thrash breaks find their place here and there, adding even more energy to these already very catchy songs.

The atmosphere is quite varied from song to song: after an intro without guitars, "Dead Skin Trade" is heavy, crushing and oppressive. On the opposite, "Akumu" is melodic, light and quite creepy, like a fog at night, distorting sounds and perceptions? The feelings might vary inside the same song too: listen to "Unearthed," with crushing thrash/death parts, then all stops and the keyboards takes center stage, ending aggression and starting uneasiness and fear (? where's this zombie ? please ? tell me ? HELP ! and then it starts again). Don't be surprised to find some funny pieces too? I think particularly about "London 13 Demon Street": a funny intro for one of the most 'in your face' tracks of the album. Also, add to all this spoken interludes, various sounds, extracts from motion pictures? You are in a horror movie!

Note too that "Stitch Her Further" was partly written by Joey Jordison from Slipknot. If you think that, because of this, Necrophagia are not tr00, sorry to disappoint you, this song is as good as the rest of the album.

A special mention about the keyboards (by Mirai Kawashima): they are definitively excellent, with this sound that seems to come straight from a haunted house. They add a lot to the atmosphere? when they are not creating it by themselves!

I think that we have here a reference for what we could call 'horror metal'. That is, metal inspired by horror movies, with music and atmospheres to match.

Highlights : Unearthed, London 13 Demon Street, Akumu