The thrashy early death metal vibe is emphasized during songs on which the guitarists play a relatively large amount of riffs in unison, such as ‘The Shadows’. Ramstedt often connects the vocal parts with haunting minor key melodic parts, while Johan Bergebäck plays riffs underneath Ramstedt that can best be described as slightly slower thrash metal with more dissonant chords. The explosive modern – but surprisingly not at all lifeless – drum sound definitely helps him come across as good as he does as well.īesides, Necrophobic makes excellent use of having two guitarists as well.
Blast beats are used sparingly, while he mostly switches between thrash polkas, straighter beats and parts with a half-time feel. As much credit as guitarist Sebastian Ramstedt’s powerful songwriting deserves for this, the drumming of sole remaining original memeber Joakim Sterner has a lot of impact on how listenable the album is. What stands out to me immediately about ‘Dawn Of The Damned’ is how dynamic the album is.
The music has hints of the horror atmosphere typical for early Norwegian black metal, but without sacrificing the riffy, post-thrash nature of early nineties death metal. Sweden’s Necrophobic has attempted this tightrope dance – and occasionally stumbled – since day one, but I think they finally found the perfect balance on ‘Dawn Of The Damned’. But it could just as easily turn an album into an endless barrage of blast beats that is exhausting to listen to. The combination of black metal and death metal is a potentially interesting one, as the black metal influences can give death metal an eerie atmosphere it would not have otherwise.
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