Review by Sonny for Necrosis (CHL) - The Search (1988)
The full-length album, The Search, was the only official release from the first iteration of Santiago's Necrosis before they split in 1990 and is the earliest chilean thrash album I could find. It was released in July of 1988 on vinyl and limited to 3500 copies with four of it's eight tracks having debuted on the 1987 Kingdom of Hate demo, the lineup here being identical to the one that was responsible for the demo.
As I said during my review of Kingdom of Hate, Necrosis' sound is very much rooted in the Bay Area thrash scene, particular touchpoints being Exodus and Testment and The Search is more of the same, with mid- to fast-paced chugging riffs, tight, aggressive guitar solos and an energetic rhythm section. Songwriting-wise, Necrosis go for a fairly orthodox approach, but they do like to incorporate several tempo changes during most of the tracks, so they seldom turn in tracks that are just generic chugathons and they even have a couple of quite progressive numbers. I have only managed to listen to Necrosis' back catalogue on YouTube, so I'm not sure if this was the case with the original recordings, but even though the full-length has a deeper, bassier sound, the demo actually has more clarity with the later recording sounding a bit dampened and less crisp than the former.
So, any production issues aside, is it any good? Well yeah, it's not bad actually and whilst I wouldn't place it quite as high as either Bonded By Blood or The Legacy, in my opinion it certainly holds it's own against the follow-ups to both of those albums. Kicking off with the title track it immediately dives headfirst into the moshpit with a killer riff straight from San Fran Bay, never really letting up for the whole forty-odd minutes runtime. Second track "Fall in the Last Summer" was for sure influenced by Anthrax's New York sound and Among the Living in particular, originally appearing on the demo, which was released not too long after the Anthrax album and is a decent take on Scott Ian and co's more jagged style of thrashing. The nine-minute "Prayer" goes even further taking a few twists and turns by combining both New York and Bay Area styles into one thrashtastic epic which makes the album worth hearing on it's own. Ultimately, I guess accusations of The Search being derivative hold some weight, to a degree, but with a track like "Prayer" the band seem to have been genuinely trying to stamp their own personality onto the burgeoning South American thrash scene.
As for the new tracks, I have already covered the title track (which is the pick of the four), "From the Sea" is a less than one minute bass guitar instrumental a bit like the latter part of "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)", "Liar" has a nice chuggy riff and is very solid and the last of the new tracks, "Golden Valley", is a decent enough instrumental with some nice soloing. Track-for-track I would have to say that the material from the demo is the stronger.
As much as I would love a copy of The Search, it is currently shifting for £80-£200 on Discogs!! I enjoyed it a lot, but not quite that much. Still, it is a little bit of thrash metal history, especially for anyone interested in the early South American scene, so the touts will price it accordingly. Incidentally, The Search was re-recorded in 2009 by Kingdom of Hate, who are comprised of original members of Necrosis. Although the production is much, much better, I think a significant portion of the vitality and youthful vigour of the original is lost in the process, making it a diminished release as a result.