Album Review: Necromantic Worship – Necromantic Worship
Band: Necromantic Worship
Title: Necromantic Worship
Release date: 29/05/2025
Label: NWN Productions, New Era Productions
Country: The Netherlands
Format reviewed: High quality digital recording
Album Review: Necromantic Worship – Necromantic Worship via NWN Productions & New Era Productions by Consanguineus
After years of silence and speculation, Necromantic Worship has finally emerged from the shadows with a long-awaited debut — a work that not only lives up to expectations, but exceeds them with unflinching reverence for the roots of black metal. Comprising seven evocative tracks and a masterfully reimagined Tiamat cover, this album isn’t just a throwback — it’s a ritualistic resurrection of a bygone spirit.
From the opening moments, it’s clear that this band wears its influences on its sleeve — not as cheap imitation, but as a ceremonial invocation. The sonic palette immediately recalls the arcane pulse of early ’90s Hellenic black metal, with the specter of Necromantia looming large over the entire album. This isn’t a casual nod to the past; it’s a deeply studied, intensely felt channeling of that scene’s most mysterious and esoteric qualities.
The compositional choices echo this devotion: serpentine rhythms, entrancing repetitions, and an atmosphere that feels both ceremonial and otherworldly. In true Necromantia tradition, the bass isn’t relegated to the background — it’s the driving force, snarling and pulsating with ominous authority. The result is a sound that feels less like traditional guitar-led black metal and more like something conjured from deeper, darker places.
The album’s opening ritual, “Sacrificial Carnage”, sets the tone with eerie atmosphere and chthonic anticipation before “The Tempering of Everos” plunges us into full invocation. Greek black metal influence is at its most prominent here: looming synths, whispered incantations that evoke Beherit’s infernal style, and a sense of structure that feels closer to occult ceremony than standard songcraft.
“Into the Haunted Crypt” slows the pace to a crawl, dragging the listener into the depths with hammering, guttural basslines that mimic the rhythm of ancient rites. Guitars shimmer at the edges, stepping in for spectral solos but otherwise bowing to the low-end dominance. It’s a bold compositional choice — and a defining one. Necromantic Worship doesn’t merely sound influenced by Necromantia — they’ve inherited the very blueprint.
The band’s cover of Tiamat’s “Malicious Paradise” (from the Sumerian Cry era) is a revelation. Rather than simply paying homage, they reimagine it through their own ritualistic lens. The core of the original remains intact, but it’s suffused with a colder, more arcane presence that makes it feel like a natural extension of the album rather than a standalone interpretation.
Later in the album, “Ancient Lunar Mysteries” takes a slightly different path — still occult, but with a more meditative tone. Liturgical synths rise like cathedral smoke, layered with choral elements and ceremonial percussion. It feels like a black mass held beneath crumbling ruins, still held together by that ever-present, commanding bass. It’s one of the album’s most immersive and hypnotic pieces, proving that the band’s range extends well beyond darkness for its own sake — here, there’s nuance, texture, and atmosphere in abundance.
Necromantic Worship’s debut is a triumph of vision and intent. Rather than mimic the past, they summon it — raw, sincere, and cloaked in the same mystery that defined the underground’s golden era. Their influences aren’t hidden, and they’re not supposed to be. They are invoked proudly and with a kind of devotional clarity that’s rare in today’s scene.
For those who remember the strange magic of the early ’90s — or those seeking to rediscover it — this album offers not a memory, but a living, breathing continuation. 9/10
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