Goblins Be Thine
[Red Stream, Inc.]

Necrophagia is a chameleon band of sorts. On every album they seem to do something totally unique and different from the album before it, and it's really paying off. Their newest Mcd "Goblins Be Thine" is a real kick in the ass to an up until recently tired and always rehashed death metal genre. I was a big fan of death metal in the late 80's and early 90's, but I lost touch with it for almost ten years when every new band that came out seemed to sound like someone else. It's death metal bands like Necrophagia that are making me regain my love for the genre again.

Well, I say Necrophagia is death metal, but there is just so much more taking place on "Goblins Be Thine" that it's hard to just pigeon hole them into that one category. Sure, at its base it's probably more like death metal than anything else, but there's also a touch of black metal, and tons of "horror soundtrack" parts which all combine together to form one bizarre yet kick ass wall of ambitious musical genius. I guess that a lot of this change of style may have to do with the fact that Necrophagia now has members of other metal bands in its rank now. Iscariah (ex-Immortal) and Sigh's Mirai both are now found within the hellish ranks of Necrophagia and both members influence can be heard easily. Mirai's keyboard parts are so great, I couldn't think of a better accompaniment to the rest of the music if I tried. Those keyboard parts remind me a lot of the work he did on his and Killjoy's "Horror Soundtrack" band, Encoh. Matter of fact, "Goblins Be Thine" sounds like a perfect marriage between Necrophagia's "Holocausto De La Morte" and Enoch's "Graveyard Disturbances". Simply stunning.

Killjoy (as always) is very adept at sounding like a complete maniac on vocals. Thing is, on the new Mcd, his vocals are more insane than ever, if you can imagine that. Deep growls and various demented shrieking really move along the horror movie-esque atmosphere of the album. I guess the liner notes of the album say it best when it states that Killjoy's position in the band is to provide "Blackblood vomiting and corpse shrieks". All the lyrics are written in and sung in English and deal with horror. Oh, the horror! As you can tell by some of the song titles, this band loves their horror movies. Of course, anyone that has ever read any interviews with Killjoy already knows this fully well. In my opinion, Killjoy is one of the most productive and unique musicians in the world of metal. He's always making new music, and never does he seem to copy himself. That's very respectable.

The packaging of "Goblins Be Thine" is exquisite! The digipak's cover is a really dark blood spattered affair with the customary half naked women and band members photos taking center stage. That is great in and of itself, but where the packaging really shines is with the lyric book. The cover of that is done in an anime style and shows a scene of the band members in the middle of a hilarious moonlit graveyard scene. Ever wanted to see an anime version of Killjoy holding a pumpkin? Sure you have, and here's your chance! This artwork is very funny and very cool. It would make the perfect premise for a T-shirt design! I also have to say that the new Necrophagia logo just reeks 1980's metal excellence! I won't go into detail about this logo and spoil it if you have yet to see it, but check it out on the album or at their Website as soon as you can. It's great! The lyric book also contains all of the lyrics written (thankfully) in a very easy to read font style, and it also contains a few photos of the band members.

The production is very good indeed. All of the vocal shrieking and keyboard parts mix well with the bassier parts and nothing ever sounds muted or distorted. Even at the times on the album when it's just the keyboards playing along to deep and bassy horrific ambient sound effects, the production still shines.

I really cannot find a single fault with "Goblins Be Thine". I like the way they mixed up the metal parts with the more subdued ambient sounding keyboard parts a lot. It truly can be classified as a "Metal Horror Soundtrack". If I have one small complaint it is that I wish this was a full length instead of a Mcd, but that doesn't make any of the music that is here any less amazing. This is in my opinion easily the best Necrophagia album since "Season Of The Dead", and that's saying a lot. I just can't wait to see what Killjoy has next in store for us all. I know it'll probably be bizarre and different, but I am pretty sure I'll love it as always.