The youth of today, all those youngsters that mumble the name Necrodeath because it's so cool to pronounce that word (Necro... Death...), were nine, ten, eleven maybe, at the time when Necrodeath reigned supreme at the dome of the extreme, violent, mysterious metal world. The shining years of the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties when names like Sodom, Kreator, Coroner and Possessed were the "hits" of the convulsing and awakening metal world. At these long since gone times, I had still been trying to digest Dark Angel's 'Darkness Descends' and Slayer's 'reign in blood' when I first tasted the bitter flavor of Necrodeath. I didn't know who they were, where did they come from, and had trouble internalizing how can a band produce such a vile, mean and crazed piece of dark art as the one that was pounding mercilessly in my ears. The insane drumming was the main thing which caught my attention, faster than anything I had heard before (it was my pre-grindcore era). Every new revelation was a head jump into something almost mystical, and the curiosity was hard to satisfy. Like first time touching a girl, like your first cigarette, like watching an open-heart surgery... And then I already knew they were Italian, and the chaos in their music was put into order and the materials I have been listening since then were a lot heavier and faster, the mystery was cleared and with it have gone the magic - The price we're paying for getting older and mature.

Necrodeath have done a rather questionable though blessed comeback. People in their mid-thirties, two out of which are from the original band; Claudio - Guitars, Peso - Drums. Unfortunately, the original vocalist, who had contributed so much to Necrodeath's uniqueness - is absent in the 2000 version. Music from the 'land of the boot' has been always considered innovative and highly original, and from the beginning till this very day, Italian acts are the most interesting ones in the extreme metal industry. From Necrodeath and Schizo, through Iconoclast, Catacomb and Homicide, to Monumentum and Sadist, the Italians have always maintained a hard core of ingenuity, however extreme their music is. Necrodeath 2000 are very good, not so much different from what they were in the underground renaissance era, still very violent and extremely potent and these guys give the listener a 100% excellent product for his hard-earned money.

I can assume most readers/listeners are not familiar with Necrodeath's old and rather rare material, and above that, those who are acquainted with those non-conformists' previous albums (just two), let me just say it will be impossible to restore the feeling, the awe and almost fear that a seventeen-year-old kid felt while listening to these new-age rage prophets for the first time, the prophets which are NECRODEATH.

With all that taken into consideration, from a here-and-now objective point of view, this is a great album, fast and refreshing and almost a beacon of light in this sea of banality and boring trendy Black Metal. Hear and learn how the elders do it!!

© 2000 c. drishner