If there is any death metal band out there with a tragically sad history, it’s Necrophagia. Amidst the spastic qualities of their releases, the entirely different line-ups, and the more pitiful involvements from certain famous yet overrated musicians, Killjoy and his pet project have tried to venture on and get the formula right, which is commendable. It gets to a point where you just want to cheer the diminutive dude on, hoping in vain that he doesn’t become the next Chris Barnes, a man with little to no talent who still succeeds because certain people with absolutely no idea of quality hype up his shit-tastic Six Feet Under releases (*cough* Rue Morgue *cough*).

The problem is Necrophagia has had a very unhelpful track record. Jump back to the mid-80’s and you have the Mach 1 line-up of Necrophagia. Unbeknownst to some, Necrophagia was right there at death metal’s beginning. Come 1989, Necrophagia released Season of the Dead, which would be their first and final record for that iteration. Interestingly enough, it was actually pretty damn good. It was no Leprosy or Piece of Time, but for a very thrashy death metal project it was a good album. Add to the fact that Killjoy and Co. were trying to tie a more traditional horror vibe into death metal (beyond the mere theme of the lyrics), it was actually pretty unique. Unfortunately, whatever skilled musicians Killjoy had at his disposal decided this was idiocy and jumped the boat. Then comes 1994, and Anton Crowley (who was really metal’s worst kept secret of being Pantera’s Phil Anselmo) decided to approach Killjoy in an attempt to resurrect Necrophagia. And now we get to the infamous Mach 2 Necrophagia. This is where the fuckup begins. If the sludge-laden, chugging riffs of Holocausto de la Morte and its accompanying EP’s proved anything, it was that Phil Anselmo definitely wasn’t the talented part of Pantera’s or Down’s music writing. Combine that with Killjoy’s very selective vocal style (i.e. vomiting out his vocal chords like a rotting corpse), and you can be sure that nearly every fan of metal equated Necrophagia with utter shit.

Needless to say, as of 2000 that line-up dissolved and we get to the current state of affairs with Necrophagia. Killjoy, pulling as many strings as he could with his side projects, rebirths Necrophagia for the second time. He got brothers Fug and Frediablo on guitars, Iscariah of Immortal on bass, Titta from Daemonia on drums, and the infamous Mirai Kawashima of Sigh on keyboards and additional effects. While some of those choices are somewhat suspect, Titta and Mirai were exactly what the doctored ordered. If you’re going to try and take horror-based death metal beyond just lyrical themes, the best guys to do it are someone as insane as the mastermind of Sigh and a man who is actively involved with horror soundtrack musician Claudio Simonetti of Goblin. This marked the release if 2003’s Divine Art of Torture, which saw a newly revitalized Necrophagia. Gone was the sludge driven music of the Anselmo-era Necrophagia, now Necrophagia had been replaced by a more melodic, mid-tempo death metal act with 70’s style prog leanings and ambience. While it still had a while to go, it was markedly entertaining, catchy and actually good. Not to mention that, but this release actually saw the first steps to realizing Killjoy’s goal of combining death metal completely with horror atmosphere. They got even closer with 2004’s Goblins Be Thine EP, which saw a heavier focus on the Goblin-influenced prog rock and ambience while still homing in on the simplistic, catchy death metal from Divine Art of Torture.

While this is going on, you have Killjoy on the side making amends for the Anselmo co-worked material (such as the shitty Viking Crown releases) by forming The Ravenous: an old death metal super group consisting of Chris Reifert and others from Autopsy/Abscess and everyone’s favorite workaholic Danny Lilker on bass. You had Killjoy releasing some honestly good Autopsy-esque material and to top that off you had the dawn of his Enoch project with Mirai, a band dedicated to horror soundtrack ambience much like Goblin and John Carpenter.

Combine all these together, and the future actually beings to look bright. Thus, the naïve young mind starts to anticipate Harvest Ritual: Volume 1, the epic that Killjoy and his buddies have been writing since the Anselmo-era material. So how does this new album come out? Like Paris Hilton playing Regan in The Exorcist: a three dollar skank whore vomiting out the acidic cum that she sucked off Father Merrin before he went through cardiac arrest. Then when she was done fellating his dead, geriatric, erect cock, she bit it off and mounted that fucker on top of her bed post. After Father Karris walked in a vein attempt to save his mentor, the possessed crack-fiend ripped the phallus out of her maggoty, crust-ridden cunt and thrust it up Karris’ ass, viciously raping his prostate to cause him to ejaculate at full power while she crammed her she-bitch claws down his neck to rip out his vocal chords. While Karris bled to death and soiled himself profusely on the ground, Hilton then smothered Merrin’s dead, drooling head in her muff, did a quick 180 turn with her pelvis, and broke off his head to eat like an oversized jawbreaker.

This album fucking sucked. Necrophagia took the great progression they achieved on the last two releases, then eviscerated their guts, re-stuffed the Anselmo-era chugging sludge riffs, and sowed it back up. Apparently, they didn’t learn their lesson.

Now, to give benefit to the doubt, some of the guitar work is definitely more reflective of the brother guitarists and "Return to Texas", "Excommunicated", and "London (13 Demon Street)" definitely are focused more around the last two albums (despite the latter’s overly cheesy lyrics). Also, Mirai’s cheesy keyboard work adds a bit of charm over the whole thing and the title track has a pretty catchy chorus. But the rest of the album is so horribly held back by the chugging sludge riffage of the Anselmo-era Necrophagia that it was as if the last two albums meant nothing. Top this off with the completely unnecessary female vocal parts and worthless cover art, and you have one mediocre release.

But that’s not the end of it. Oh no… not at all. There are two songs on this baby that will kill any hope you have in humanity. First you have "Akumu". This song is supposed to be Mirai’s chance to shine, but I guess even he sometimes majorly fucks up. Everything proggy and atmospheric he achieved on Goblins Be Thine is entirely shot to Hell as "Akumu" unravels into a over-the-top, shitty, melodic romp that would have more place on demo from a high school Hot Topic employee’s Cradle of Filth cover band than it would a serious horror-based death metal album. Jesus, I can just hear Paris breaking Merrin’s pelvis and ripping through his flesh so she can lick out his urine drenched bladder as this song plays.

Then you have "Stitch Her Further". Oh fuck no. Guess who co-wrote this? Come on, guess. You’d think with a guy like Killjoy working with guys like Chris Reifert and Fenriz you’d see something like Wilska or Mika from Finntroll or Impaled Nazarene doing guest writing and vocals. Hell, Killjoy appeared on Obscene Eulogy’s debut album, which was fronted by Mika and is now currently fronted by Wilska, so it’s not too far off. Guess who yet? Two words: Joey Jordison.

Let it sink in. Let it sink in like Paris’ tongue, slowly lapping up the fluids in Karris’ urethra after she slit his member and slid her tongue down his mutilated member. Give it a second. Killjoy allowed the man responsible for not just one of the worst nu metal acts of all time but all one of the worst musical acts to ever associate itself with horror to co-write and do guest vocals on his album. He let the fucking queer ass drummer to Slipknot and the worst perpetrator of Murderdolls to co-write and do guest vocals on a song.

So what about the song itself? More Anselmo-era chugging and sludge. My, my, certainly Joey Jordison is amazing and innovative at his song writing! Chuck Schuldiner is spinning in his grave for the shit that just got dumped on death metal and Lucio Fulci is spinning even faster because of the bowel movement that splattered on top of horror. Fuck you, Joey Jordison, fuck you.

Fuck, Necrophagia was actually showing promise… and this is what happened. Guys, drop the Anselmo-material, disassociate yourselves with queers like Jordison, and take your sweet ass time to make sure you actually learn from your mistakes on Volume 2. Fuck this album. If you want to hear good Necrophagia, go grab Goblins Be Thine or Divine Art of Torture. And while you’re at it, get the new Machetazo and Blue Holocaust releases: those goregrind releases do a better job at getting down horror than Harvest Ritual: Volume 1 does.

Written By: Necro-tron