Necrot will release their new full-length, Lifeless Birth, via Tankcrimes on April 12.
Necrot continues their ascent to the forefront of American aural extremity, pushing the boundaries of style and continuing to recast metal in their image. Founded by bassist, vocalist, and principal songwriter Luca Indrio and drummer Chad Gailey in 2011 with guitarist Sonny Reinhardt joining the following year, the Oakland, California trio offers Lifeless Birth as a culmination of their to-date efforts to encapsulate and push forward the deathly stylings of 2020’s Mortal and their 2017 debut, Blood Offerings.
It’s not about giving up a ferocity that’s helped make them a household name among the converted. Instead, Necrot uses that same, by-now-characteristic intensity as the backdrop for an expanded songwriting palette. They’ve always been a band who stood out. The maturity they show on Lifeless Birth confirms that’s been the plan all along. It is a vision of what metal can be and do in 2024, tearing down old barriers and keeping those traditional elements that make it stronger.
Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Greg Wilkinson -- who has helmed all three Necrot albums -- and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, Lifeless Birth pivots fluidly between technical intricacy, progressive poise, and all-out brutality. Scouring lead work will have thrash heads nodding knowingly, and an overarching groove reaches out across the metal microgenres with a righteous call to worship. Its songs are memorable and varied, unpretentious but able to rear up with statelier violence. At the same time, “Drill The Skull,” “Cut The Cord,” “The Curse,” and others prove that just because a song is beating you into the ground doesn’t mean it can’t also be forward-thinking. Or catchy.
“The last few years have been tough for us and pretty much for everyone,” notes Indrio. “The result is Lifeless Birth, our most aggressive album so far, but at the same time also the most melodic. We have always been progressing as a band and I think this is our full maturity stage. We have been Necrot for thirteen years now, we work hard to continue doing what we do, and we have sacrificed a lot to it. We want to give our contribution to what metal is and will be, we don’t want to just pass by unnoticed. We want to live our mark and so far, Lifeless Birth is without doubt our best effort.
In advance of the record’s release, today the band drops first single and album opener, “Cut The Cord.”
Elaborates Indrio, “We are stoked to finally give our fans a new song and soon a new album. ‘Cut The Cord’ talks about how our minds are contaminated by a constant flow of negative information fed to us on a daily basis. People have their heads buried in their phones, constantly eating from a plate full of shit ,and the awful future we all didn’t want is now our present. A superficial society of people scared of each other. ‘Cut The Cord’ is a call to disconnect and refuse to live in fear, disengaging from what is making us miserable and starting to perceive life for what one believes and not the distorted and often fake reality that is constantly presented to us in many forms. It’s time to cut the cord.”
Lifeless Birth, which features cover art again by Marald Van Haasteren, will be released on CD, cassette, and digital formats as well as an LP in several different and exciting vinyl variants all housed in a golden foil-stamped gatefold jacket.
Preorder at the Tankcrimes webshop.
Tracklisting:
“Cut The Cord”
“Lifeless Birth”
“Superior”
“Drill The Skull”
“Winds Of Hell”
“Dead Memories”
“The Curse”
“Cut The Cord”:
After having their Mortal tour plans scuttled owing to the covid pandemic, family health issues that led Indrio, who became a US citizen in 2016 and currently lives in Mexico, to return to Italy for a time canceled what would have been their first tour post-plague. Still, despite this and Gailey suffering a broken back, requiring multiple surgeries and intense physical therapy to be able to drum again, period, Indrio being struck with Bell’s Palsy the night before he was originally due to fly to the studio to record, and Reinhardt requiring multiple surgeries on his hands in the months since they finished, Necrot charges forward with material distinguished in its real-world point of view and willingness to look beyond extreme metal tropes in lyrics, the melodies of its guitar solos, and unbridled audience engagement.
The band’s 2024 live takeover begins this Sunday with a trio of headlining shows before joining Municipal Waste for the inaugural Brainsqueeze Tour from February 15 through March 16 with additional headlining shows scattered throughout. Additional support on the Brainsqueeze journey will be provided by labelmates Ghoul and Dead Heat.
(Photo – Chris Johnston)
