CoC : Necrosphere - Revived : Review

Necrosphere - _Revived_
(Diehard Music, 2002)
by: David Rocher (6 out of 10)

Formerly known under the monicker Cenotaph, these four Italian deathsters have now been roaming the underground extreme scene for a full decade, alas earning themselves no more than lukewarm recognition -- and it is unlikely that the grinding slab of raging death metal titled _Revived_ will do anything to alter this status quo. Indeed, despite being a sincere and reasonably enjoyable self-claimed "old school death metal" release, _Revived_ simply fails to display any real inspirational genius; much as Necrosphere are truly impressive musicians (in particular, the drumming antics with which _Revived_ oozes fall nothing short of heroic), their songwriting skills are merely decent, and, applied to this Italian four-piece, the denomination "old school" soon turns out to be little more than an embarrassed-sounding synonym for "very unoriginal" and "somewhat deja-vu". Akin to their blasting rendition of Slayer's classic "Necrophiliac", Necrosphere are pleasant, technical and actually quite ear-catching, but nothing more than that -- and, in a hopelessly saturated scene such as today's extreme metal universum, this failure to display any form of genuine brilliance can only turn out to be Necrosphere's worst enemy -- despite this band's totally metal sincerity --, not to mention their one-way pass to a prolonged stay in shadowed anonymity.

(article published 3/7/2002)