Description

2006 reissue on Battle Cry records

Necronomicon were one of the many underground thrash bands that didn’t gain much recognition or respect. Hailing from Germany, they never broke through and achieved the level of acclaim or renown as the ‘Big Three’ of German Thrash, those being Kreator, Destruction and Sodom. Instead they stayed in the underground, released four albums and subsequently split up eleven years after they were formed just to reform in 2000 again. Their second full length album ‘Apocalyptic Nightmare’ sounds like ‘Sentence of Death’ or ‘Infernal Overkill’ (by Destruction, for the three people who don’t know) made grittier, sloppier and more repetitive. With myself being a fan of this particular type of thrash metal this is not necessarily a bad thing, but the fact remains that Destruction had done this before in 1984-5, and considering how thrash evolved the previous year this album is two years late. The aforementioned reason could be why they never gained much popularity in the metal scene, as while bands such as Slayer were still paving the way forward for the entrance of Death Metal to the scene, Necronomicon were happy to play primitive thrash which had already been done before and in some cases better. It is still pretty good though. The music on here is raw, straightforward thrash metal the way it used to be played in the early 80s. There is a big influence from Destruction present, and to a lesser extent from Sodom’s first few records. A gritty production increases the intensity present on many of the songs, with simple yet effective, ‘rough’ sounding riffs played at a high pace driving them forward. Adding to this is the guitar tone, which is scratchy with a lot of treble present. The vocals are harsh yells that sound undeniably German, complimenting the style of riffing nicely, while the solos remain short and unremarkable. Some say this is just another thrash record. However, this is a fairly good one, and despite it’s shortcomings it should not be looked over by German thrash fans. It’s not a masterpiece, but if you want some solid, primitive thrash you can’t really go wrong with this.

Track listing:
1. The Ancient Ones
2. Apocalyptic Nightmare
3. The Following Century (Darkland II)
4. Rhetorical Dictum
5. In Memory
6. Broken Illusions
7. Retributive Strike