Richard HolmesLIK – Necro (Metal Blade)
If you play old school, Stockholm-style, Swedish death metal, there aren’t many places you can go. Stray too far from the Left Hand Path and that dense, corrosive aura, so vital the sound, will disappear. Unplug the HM-2 pedal? Don’t even think about it.
And that famous bunch of teenagers with surnames like Andersson, Hellid and Petrov, who wandered into Sunlight Studios and somehow birthed an entire genre, will always take some beating.
Indeed, many OSSDM (you work it out) acts are simply content with firing up the buzzsaw and riffing away, even if the results can seem a little stodgy, compared to their illustrious forebears.
Hell, even LIK admit that Deceased, Necro’s opener, is “a direct homage” to Entombed (it’s a damned good one, by the way).
But the Stockholm quartet do stand out from the pack. They have a spark that many of their contemporaries would slay for. Getting LIK’d is downright invigorating…
Formed in 2014, LIK are relative newcomers – albeit with an enviable CV that takes in the Katatonia, Bloodbath, General Surgery and a host more. Their hunger for sonic slaughter, however, was evident as soon as Mass Funeral Evocation dropped in 2015. Carnage, that album’s successor, was aptly named. Released via Metal Blade, it put LIK on the map.
LIK it up…
Necro, the band’s fourth, is delivered with real flair and finesse. Granted, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, or mark a stylistic switch for the four piece. But from the classy melodic leads that punctuate War Praise, to the gristle grooves of Morgue Rat and the trad metal dynamism of Fields of Death, Necro sucks you into LIK’s decaying world.
Roared on by the ragged throat of Tomas Åkvik – whose tales of parasitic worms, murderers and brutal conflict cover 10 gruesome tracks – LIK are in searing form. In Ruins apes Bloodbath at their very best (and not just because Nick Holmes pops up on vocals): it’s death metal nirvana, an exquisite balance of Gothic grandeur and eviscerating fretwork, complete with raging chorus. The Stockholm Massacre is urgent, rapid fire mayhem. They brings us an addictive, mid-paced stomp that is as menacing as the underworld hunters Åkvik describes. And closer Rotten Inferno leaves you with a chill down the spine as the album decomposes into sickly, Autopsy-style death doom.
Necro by name, necro by nature, this record is pure rot and roll damnation.
Photo credit: Michaela Barkensjö.
