NECROPHAGIA – Moribundis Grim

vote
6.5

• Bands:
  NECROPHAGIA
• Duration: 00:30:01
• Available from: 10/05/2024
• Label:

• Time To Kill Records

“Moribundis Grim” is an album that is easy to listen to, but at the same time difficult to describe, if we want to delve deeper and not just talk about it in brief. Let's start: “Moribundis Grim” is not exactly the new Necrophagia album, but it still contains unreleased material; at the same time it's not really a collection put together haphazardly, given that there is the clear intent to give a finished form to demos that were never completed due to the death of Killjoy, among other things with the help of several musicians who weren't necessarily part of the band at that time.
The standout single is certainly the title track, completed in the vocal parts left unfinished by the death of Killjoy by none other than John McEntee (Incantation). The song, composed by guitarist Serge Strelsov, has quite modern connotations similar to the framework of the discreet “Whiteworm Cathedral” and all in all, it is a song that could be included in some Crowbar release, with a different vocal.
Following this are two re-recordings of classics such as “Bleeding Torment” and “Mental Decay” which, in our opinion, do not add much to the originals; more interesting is the cover of “Halloween 3” by Samhain which, together with the intro of “House By The Cemetery”, revised in a metal key, and the instrumental “Scarecrows”, embellished with keyboards, brings to light the side of Necrophagia always linked to B-series horror.
Another instrumental closes, “Sundown”, also notable for its keyboard inserts. The operation promoted by Time To Kill starts from the demos of the mid-2010s lineup, namely Killjoy, Serge Streltsov, Shawn Slusarek and Jake Arnette and then adds, to their performances, the completions of Titta Tani (drums), the voice of the aforementioned John McEntee (Incantation), and keyboards by Dee Commisso and Mirai Kawashima (Sigh).
The material is pleasant, absolutely not fundamental and if you look at it from this point of view it's nice to have more music back under the Necrophagia name, given that Killjoy has always been a great supporting character of death metal and a symbol of the uncompromising underground. The cover is a bit of a sore point, quite in bad taste in our opinion, but which all in all can also fit into the perspective of Necrophagia's iconographic path over time.
We conclude with a brief reasoning on the usefulness of bringing incomplete demos back to light after the death of Killjoy, the undisputed soul and identity of the American band: on a human level we hope that everyone agrees, that there are no rudeness and clashes between former members , families and who knows who else, all well-known stories in the world of metal; as collectors, however, we are certainly pleased to have the opportunity to hear Necrophagia's music again, even if we would still like the album not to be considered as a 'new' album because that is certainly not what it is about – at least, not entirely.
Finally, it would have been very nice to understand for each song who contributed to the creation, when specifically and so on: why is a live song included? Where was it registered? Why was the band re-recording two early classics? However, we will suspend judgment on this while waiting for the final version which will be in stores: perhaps the notes accompanying the booklet will shed full light on everything.