I know I should check out Morbundis Grim but it’s hard without Killjoy. I respect that care was taken to preserve what Killjoy would have wanted, but it still feels weird. While I was not close with Killjoy, my ex and him were friends. We would meet up with him at Cinema Wasteland and he thought our kid was the coolest. Killjoy has a daughter and I think spending time with Annabelle reminded him of when Renee was younger, or that’s what he would say. He would walk slightly ahead of us at the convention, turn around, or stand in front of inappropriate memorabilia, movies, and different tables. Total dad energy.
The first time I saw Necrophagia was at The Outpost in Kent. I came home from work, got Annabelle ready for her grandparents, ate Dominos, and headed over. Whatever I ate from Dominos gave me food poisoning because by the time Necrophagia was playing, I was hurting. But my ex was a HUGE Necrophagia fan and I believe that was his first time seeing them too. So I didn’t want to make him leave early or anything, I headed to the bathroom and then did my best to enjoy the rest of the show with frequent bathroom trips—LOL!
After the show he was talking to the guys and I was sweating trying to keep it all together as long as possible. What felt like an eternity, I was like, “Dude, I gotta go, I’m sick as fuck.” I’d catch them at least one more time… without food poisoning and it was a fucking killer show. My ex got to see them a few more times when I was home with the kiddo, but such is life.
Holocausto de la Morte
Anton Crowley was the reason I ended up familiar with Necrophagia, outside of the early death metal band being from Ohio, the fact Phil Anselmo was involved intrigued me. While that may be cringe to certain extreme metal fans, I will never deny my early influences. I love how many genres Phil has fucked with over the years and I thought it was cool that during peak Pantera fame that he did something so underground. His guitarwork on that album is so evil and gritty. Some of my older friends have different feelings about Phil’s involvement, and I know there was some bad blood at some point, but let’s not go there.
Holocausto de la Morte (1998) is killer from start to finish. I often recommend that people start at this album if they’re just getting into the band. Don’t get me wrong, Season of the Dead influenced a lot of early extreme metal and is a piece of metal history that is not to be ignored, I just tend to recommend Holocausto… first because it’s probably my favorite Necrophagia record.
My favorite elements of this record are the dissonate guitars and gruesome vocals. The artwork grosses me out some, haha, but that’s the point. I still remember saving up enough with my ex to get it because it was more than we would typically spend on a vinyl record, but sometimes… It just be like that.
As part of my divorce, a lot of the Necrophagia collection went with my ex because he did some trades with Killjoy directly. And/or we saved money in the vinyl jar, and somehow, that resulted in him getting most of the original pressings and such because he came in and grabbed records while I was out of town. I still got to keep a lot, and I don’t want to open up this area of my divorce to the public, but there’s a lot of vinyl I miss and will one day acquire again. My only advice: do not share records with your spouse. Get duplicates, and work on your own collection. We had about the same number of records going into the relationship and the splitting of the music collection was a contentious part of the end. It ended up pretty fair—I think—But some things still sting. I’m sure it’s the same for him.
Season of the Dead
The debut album is also one of the first-ever death metal albums. It was released a couple of months before Scream Bloody Gore. Depending on your school of thought around the first death metal album, Season of the Dead might be it. Some will say it is Possessed, Seven Churches and while there is some weight to that argument, especially if we are strictly speaking about studio albums instead of demos, Seven Churches still sounds pretty thrashy. I think SBG also falls in a similar wheel-house and even Necrophagia’s SOTD has some speed/thrash elements.
Both Death and Necrophagia were inspired by horror films by the likes of Lucio Fulci and George A. Romero, whereas Seven Churches was to be evil and satanic, drawing some inspiration from The Exorcist, opening up the album with the theme and closing the record with a title that now defines the genre, “Death Metal”.
Of the three, it was Death who went on to further develop the sound that defined the genre. Possessed released another studio album that did not gain the same traction, and Necrophagia wouldn’t release anything for nearly 10-years after their debut. Death is Fun is Anton Crowley’s first feature with the band and about two years later, Holocausto… would be released.
I think Season of the Dead embodied of lot of what we consider death metal today. Like Possessed, it has some crazy fast riffs on tracks like ”World Funeral” or “Bleeding Torment”… Ok the whole album is pretty relentless. But Killjoy specifically had lower vocals than either Jeff or Chuck. But I digress, Season of the Dead is an essential death metal record if you consider yourself an extreme metal collector. It’s an under appreciated part of metal history that originates in Ohio.
WhiteWorm Cathedral and Deathtrip 69
I fell in love with this record the first time I heard it. I know there are people who don’t like it as much, but I dig the chunky riffs that groove. I can see how Deathtrip 69 record set up WhiteWorm Chathedral a little bit. I think this record has a little more punk / metalpunk influence. Thankfully, I still have the WhiteWorm Cathedral vinyl, but Deathtrip 69 will need to be replaced.
Necrophagia – Underrated Death Metal
Though at times lost in the originators of death metal debate, a solid contender nevertheless. I will get around to listening to Moribundis Grim at some point. Killjoy was part of the writing from 2016 until his untimely death in 2018 alongside Serge Streltsov, Shawn Slusarek, and Jake Arnette. It features ex-Necrophagia members, John McEntee, Titta Tani, and Mirai Kawashima, which alone makes it worth checking out. I have been slow to check out new or new-to-me music lately. If you’ve scoped it, let me know what you think!
If you have never paid much attention to Necrophagia and enjoy death metal as a genre, you should spend some time with the discography, especially the early days!
Have to admit, I wasn’t overly fond of Necrophagia the first time I heard them – The Beyond DVD extras. But Phil’s – pardon, “Anton’s” – guitar tone really draws me in. Still need to explore the earlier, and later, material. But the Phil-on-guitar era is chef’s-kiss