Necropole are a French group who play flowing melodic black metal in the style of Graveland and the Quebecois with riffing heavily influenced by Gorgoroth. Necropole is an anthology CD collecting both of Necropole’s earlier demos, Atavisme… and Ostara, that were released on cassette only but readily heard through streaming on Youtube. Hopefully Necropole’s debut album will not be titled Necropole too to avoid confusion.

Necropole can rightfully be seen as trying to right the wrongs of contemporary funderground black ‘n’ roll “flowing black metal” acts such as Sargiest and other impostors who appropriate the leads of earlier, more successfully artistically and commercially black metal bands from the early 90s to use as hooks in pop rock verse chorus verse songs occasionally throwing in a searing buzzsaw or tv static riff unrelated to the hook to prove themselves brutal, hard, and heavy. If this sounds familiar, this story happened before in the early 80s in Los Angeles (glam “metal”) and Gothenburg in the mid to late 90s (melodic “death metal”) where producer Fredrik Nordstrom encouraged bands to appropriate the Ritchie Blackmore and Mercyful Fate inspired leads of earlier Swedish death metal groups as hooks for making pop songs.

Necropole songs alternate between a few tremolo-picked riffs each counter-pointed by a buzzsaw Gorgoroth style riff in dueling hard-panned guitars in the usual heavy metal style. Necropole progress each of these riffs over the course of the songs, effectively variate, and use them to lead into melodic fills. At least one riff always eventually fully morphs into another and the songs effectively conclude with clever enough melodic variations or triumphal solos. The bass is nicely centered and prominent but the tracks from the first demo, Atavisme, painfully overuse guitar amp feedback and white noise.

Necropole’s riffs and compositions are mostly singularly effective at mourning the decline of the French nation due to third world immigration from the ruins of the French Empire, leftism, and multiculturalism but are often overlong and indistinguishable from each other as a whole. Several of their riffs are near identical. Nevertheless, Necropole show great potential with their excellent musicianship. Necropole provides an infectious listen for a few spins until Necropole’s compositional uniformity rear its ugly head and you set the CD jewel case on the shelf not to be listened to completely again for years.

Tags: anthology, Black Metal, demos, france, necropole, northern heritage, review