Necrowretch - Swords of Dajjal (2024)^{Release ID: 49925}

France's Necrowretch are a four-piece centred around guitarist, vocalist and founding member Vlad and, despite them being around for over fifteen years now, I have never crossed paths with before. Swords of Dajjal is their fifth full-length with the title referring to an evil entity from Islamic tradition. Musically Necrowretch play a muscular form of black metal that contains a significant quantity of death metal DNA which gives it a more solid, denser sound than you would necessarily expect, whilst remaining emphatically within the black metal realm.

Drumming duties are handled by Nicolas Ferrero, ex-member of Fhoi Myore and Brutal Avengers, under the pseudonym N. Destroyer and he turns in an admirably controlled, yet powerful performance which is pushed to the fore at times and thunders like the rumblings of the very heavens themselves. The riffs are fast and frenetic in the main, but the band are also able to throttle it back and drop into a more doomy sound that feels more ominous than any amount of out and out blasting. There is some decent lead work, handled by guitarist Wenceslas Carrieu (as W. Cadaver), although it is submerged in the mix to a degree and doesn't necessarily cut like it could as a result. Vlad's vocals are of the ragged, savage, shrieking variety that so well define the archetypal black metal singer and are spot on.

I think that ultimately appreciation of Swords of Dajjal will come down to how the listener views the mixing of the album, with the drums most definitely having a more dominant presence than is usual and their booming and thundering presence may be too overwhelming for some, although I confess they are one of the reasons that I like this so much. The flipside of this is that, for some the lead guitar may be too overwhelmed and buried under this all-consuming battery and although the riffs are perfectly audible the solos are swamped. As I said, I quite like this thundering style and am well on board with how this has turned out with it being a visceral-sounding and energetic blast of black metal indulgence.