Necromaniac - Sciomancy, Malediction & Rites Abominable ★★★★☆
Updated: Jan 21
Here I was quietly prepping this year's first post of January's singles and EPs of note, thinking that we have a month or two until albums really start to appear in the wild - then UK based Necromaniac slapped me silly and undoubtedly we have one of the year’s greats straight outta the gate into 2025.
Sciomancy, Malediction & Rites Abominable is a gargantuan esprit, echt with ways most evilous. A beast that charms with one arm and thrashes with the other; not ambiguous but layered, not swollen but replete, not raw but bestial.
Compositions convey the spirit of Black Metal with a lithe cadence of Thrash Metal. After a mood piece of an intro, 'Daemonomantia' opens its maws and perfectly displays the heritage and the genre mashup. There is a fantastic wicked mood to the album. A proper whiff of that primordial tomb that makes everyone in the town uneasy just by being there - there's evil afoot!
Necromaniac manages to skip the said genre conventions, sounding fresh and poised. Sure, its perhaps not that original with the theme if you stop to think about it - but its not about what you say, rather more how you say it. As sheer Black Metal this might've been prominently average - right down to the lyrics revolving around undeath and mighty magics.
Y'all need to make an evening out of this one for realsies; take care of the dailies and put the phone on mute, prep something to drink, eat something good and set yourself comfortably (and appropriately) in a...
Crucifixesque manner!
Just when you think you've got what the song is about it evolves and becomes something else - and however much the songs evolve they recall their origin and remain true. So, even though I'll describe the album with the E-word at the end here it doesn't come with the negatives of being an opus - you know, aimlessly wandering about and trying on just about anything that might draw breath.
The cult-like (doomish) slow start of 'Grave Mound Oath' trickles in tremolos and blasting, becoming a sprint down that hill where unnameable evils stir from the ground. 'Teraphim (Skull Sorcery)' treats you to the fastest and most chaotic romp before pulling a very Arabesque mat of mythicism under your feet. There isn't a great intrinsic difference between the songs that are 3 minutes to those that go past 10 so everything comes together nicely in that sense too.
I always rant about how an album needs to have ups and downs to feel like a thought out body of effort and I'm happy sport that dorky thumbs up with a toothy smile in this regard. Littered with appropriate ominous bells, gusts of wind, and incoherently theatrical snarling summonings the album whisks you to another time and place - where the dead rise and evil looms.
Necromaniac sounds goddamn beautiful here. Guitars feel really close but give enough room for you to find instruments effortlessly and appreciate the Hell outta everything. The sound of the album is a true achievement because it sounds larger— no, grander than it perhaps should with its apparent form. HiFi geeks out there will find few more layers of excitement.
This one here is a debut album, 10 years after the first demo on record. Yeah, the fellas have been busy with other projects, and undoubtedly with life stuff, and the works.
But boy, do those 10 years pay off
This is a result of that time, not the sum of it. That is to say that the album isn't like the world's fattest man without an arsehole - it doesn't contain absolutely everything thrown together from those years. First and foremost the album feels at ease with itself. Listening it through doesn't feel like a chore and you just want to dive back in to discover new things you might've missed - no doubt of being too enamoured by this 'n' that!
In many ways Sciomancy, Malediction & Rites Abominable is an epic - without the weight that might pop to mind. It's got a lot and a lot of what it's got makes me grin. That sh!t also happens with King Diamond, take from that what you will. If the laborious moniker of 'Blackened Thrash Metal' ever suited a band its this one - and I will fucking die on this hill.
THRASH-O-METER
★★★★☆ SONGWRITING
★★★☆☆ THEMES
★★★★☆ LONGEVITY
★★★★☆ PRODUCTION
★★★☆☆ THRASHABILITY
SCORE:
★★★★☆ BADASS SH!T
(decimals are for weaklings)