Necrophagia – Moribundis Grim
Release Date: 10th May 2024
Label: Time To Kill Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Old School Death Metal.
FFO: Exhumed, Autopsy, Incantation.
Review By: Rick Farley
This one is for the diehard fans of Necrophagia. I am going to keep this review relatively short, solely based on this being the bands final album and something that most of us did not think we would ever see or hear.
Between 2016 and 2018, the legendary Ohio death metal band Necrophagia last line up, which consisted of (vocalist) Frank “Killjoy” Pucci (vocalist), Serge Streltsov (guitars), Shawn Slusarek (drums) and Jake Arnette (bass) composed and began recording what would become their final creation, Moribundis Grim.
Sadly, on March 18th, 2018, Killjoy, the godfather of gore metal, passed away before he could finish the album. With the help of friends and former Necrophagia members; John McEntee (Incantation), Titta Tani (ex-Goblin) and Mirai Kawashima (Sigh), the album was finally complete.
A brief history for those uninitiated, Necrophagia began life in the early eighties and along with Death and Possessed are considered to be one of the founding bands of death metal. They formed in 1983 and in 1987 released their gore drenched debut album Season of the Undead, which could very well be one of the most undervalued albums of all time, considering when it came out. I encourage anyone that is new to this band to check out their back catalogue and get a glimpse of where gory death metal started.
Moribundis Grim is a small collection of covers, demos, live songs, and unfinished material, so for the most part just ignore the rating. I could have just as easily put a five there. I will say this though, while this is a special release, I would have liked to have had a little more to bite my teeth into, three of the eight tracks are essentially instrumentals. Either way, it is still pretty fucking cool to hear this.
Track two, Moribundis Grim, is a song co-written by Killjoy, Serge, and Shawn back in 2017. Unfortunately, Killjoy passed away during the tracking of the song, and it was left unfinished until John McEntee stepped in to lend his snarling growl to it. A groovy face melter of a track that’s pure old school chugging death metal.
Tracks three Bleeding Torment, track four Mental Decay and track five Halloween (Samhain cover) are all demo versions featuring Killjoy’s last vocals and are an absolute treat to hear. Grimy, and dirty death metal in a raw, unproduced form. It gives me goosebumps hearing Killjoy’s sinister but charismatic growls once again on these songs.
Overall, if you are a fan of Necrophagia, get this immediately, and if you’re new to the band definitely check out whatever you can get your grubby little hands on and pay your respect to a death metal legend.
(3.5 / 5)
