In nature, nothing can exist in stasis, but radical change forms the same chaos that stasis does, namely a loss of energy potential. This means that anything enduring exists in a constant state of internal conflict but within the parameters of continuity between past and future to its roots.

In other words, as Fred Nietzsche said, “become who you are.” Things in nature grow and mature rather than, human-style, changing to new quantities of structural principle; instead, they refine their core principles in quality, increasing an ever-intensifying density of expression.

As those who have studied complexity know, this means reducing the number of patterns they have while simultaneously using them in more varied ways, so that a few core ideas can express almost any more specific idea. Language, for example, streamlines grammar and refines itself to root words but gives those more forms and combinations.

Necrophiliac return after a quarter century with a followup to Chaopula: Citadel of Mirrors (1992), a thundering dirge of old school death metal most comparable to Cenotaph, Infester, and Hellhammer. Simply repeating that with better musicality would not have sufficed.

Instead, Necrophiliac continue to follow the evolution of death metal with more of an ambient sound, greater interplay between riffs internally in each song, and allowing the mood to guide the song with serendipity and a playful versatility found in a few forms given multiple voices to form a language specialized in morbidity.

Expect massive structures of power chords colliding which then abstract themselves away into Desecresy, Incantation, and Demoncy style riffs which focus more on an intermittent return to a harmonic texture than a true drone, building a lattice from repetition of a harmonic center and then expanding on it with chromatic complexity and subtle, fragmentary melody.

On top of this, Necrophiliac weave in old school metal details in the Southern European style which emphasizes a modal language based in color notes taken out of their normal context, creating a queasy effect which appears almost dissonant but is more properly the recontextualization of expectations into new articulations.

Like much of the newer death metal, Necrophiliac no longer focus on the single big distinctive riff but relatively subtle, straightforward patterns which are then woven through with variations and counterpoints, producing a language with internal give and take.

No Living Man Is Innocent will not appeal to those who want a big obvious riff or the same sawing three-chord nonsense that war metal presents, since instead like an ambient work, it builds upon a foundation of the simple and reveals the depth of potential hiding within it. This produces immersion in darkness more than a confrontation.

Tags: ambient metal, death metal, Necrophiliac