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Necrophagist: Epitaph
03/03/10 || Smalley
You just can’t rush genius, ya know? Case in point: Muhammed Suiçmez, inspired to write music by his love of death metal, takes up the guitar in 1990, and, without a single lesson, teaches himself by playing each day for the next three years. He forms Necrophagist, his very own masturbatory, ultra-technical death metal band in ’92, starts writing music, then almost single-handedly (with some help from a drum machine) records “Onset of putrefacation” in ’99. Nothing substantial happens for the next half-decade as Suiçmez brings in some guys to help with the bass ‘n drums, then we get “Epitaph” in ’04, a delicious tech-death goodie that proves good things do come to those who wait.
Now, every member of ‘phagist gives a great performance here, but the only one you’re probably interested in is Su-Su-Sudiomez and his mighty ax. Needless to say, he proves those 1,000+ consecutive days of learning guitar weren’t wasted, with his wild, agile, weddle-weddle-weddle solos, and what easily could’ve been self-indulgent from lesser ax men simply leaves you in awe (and jealousy) of his skills. In addition, the great production job here renders his solos clear-as-hell, so you can admire them all the more.
But, proficient as Suiçmez may be with a guitar, “Epitaph” would be pretty boring if it was nothing but him and Christian Münzner soloing, so what else do we have here? Well, on the vocals side of things, Suiçmez does a great job with his roaring, grizzly bear-style growls. Now, I really don’t feel like rehashing my thoughts when it comes to his vocals, so just go read my Suiçmez write-up in Best Growlers if you want more details, but rest assured, this hombre’s got one mean growl goin’ for him here.
Percussion-wise, I love the strong sound that Hannes Grossmann’s drums have, keeping them from being forgotten amidst all that insane guitar work, and Grossman’s performance certainly helps as well, with extremely energetic blast beats galore. The riffs are uniformly intense, providing very good foundation for the solos, and Stefan Fimmers’s bass is fortunately quite audible, and the parts where he’s allowed to solo are almost as good as Suiçmez’s! What more can I say, you basically have a tech-death fan’s wet dream for every single instrument on “Epitaph”.
Oh yeah, and I can’t forget about the lyrics; even though Suiçmez’s often-rushed growling renders a good portion of them unintelligible, they are quite good, with the frontman moving on from the violent, “Scream bloody gore”-type lyrics of “Onset of putrefacation”, to a more philosophical, “Individual thought patterns” style: “One wishes existence/To be of fulfillment/But leaves bend to the will/Of winds blowing…/To foresee/The end… of a soul/EPITAPH”. Cool, huh? Granted, Muhammed still growls with the same viciousness as on “putrefacation”, so he might as well still be talking about eating corpses, but I gotta give him points for the effort.
Okay, now it’s time for a bit of nit-picking after all that praise; while “Epitaph” is a lot of fucken fun to listen to, it derives a bit too much of its strength from Suiçmez’s guitar-savant technicality, and for the next record, I’d prefer to see more of a balance between technicality and distinctive songwriting, instead of the series of rapid tempo switch-ups, crazy solos, and relentless blasturbation that is “Epitaph”. Still, this is one intense, extremely enjoyable record, great for some non-stop headbangage and another good laugh at Dragonfarce and their “incredible” guitar skills. Take notice, Beneath The Massacres of the world, this is how fucken tech-death is done. Now, hurry up with that third fucken album!!!
- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Relapse
- Website: www.necrophagist.de
- Band
- Muhammed Suiçmez: guitar, vocals
- Christian Münzner: guitar
- Stefan Fimmers: bass
- Hannes Grossmann: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Stabwound
- 02. The Stillborn One
- 03. Ignominious & Pale
- 04. Diminished To B
- 05. Epitaph
- 06. Only Ash Remains
- 07. Seven
- 08. Symbiotic In Theory
