Review Summary: One-demo wonders vol. 3: Necro Schizma (although technically they released two demos, the second is less important).
Necro Schizma were a Dutch death/doom band whose existence barely spanned a year. However, in that time they would release a seminal and highly revered demo, 1989's "Erupted Evil", which over the past two decades has proven a lasting classic among underground metal freaks. The production is poor and the musicianship is amateur, but they played just the right style of simplistic, unrelenting Hellhammer/Celtic Frost worshippin' death/doom. Unlike many late 80s obscurities this stuff is perfectly listenable and considerably ahead of its time. It's no wonder that this little piece of plodding filth has aged so well, as it possesses the best qualities of the Dutch death/doom scene that would explode a few years later, and plenty of juvenile aggression and charm to boot.
The sound here is cleaner and sharper than one might expect, but still relatively fuzzy and buried in some tape hiss for obvious reasons. The guitar has a nice dull sub end sound, and there's narry a high note to be heard, as these guys deal pretty much exclusively in ugly plodding DOOM. There are little to no melodic tendencies save for the odd slow poorly played lead consisting of single notes ringing out. The riffs rarely if ever raise above a snail pace, which is unique for a band that emerged this early. They incorporate a lot of Hellhammer-worship (something that would be common in death/doom bands to come, especially in Holland), albeit sunk down to a sweet sluggish pace. Their sound is unmistakably death/doom, just permanently dumbed down to the level of head-smashing Cro-Magnon doom fiends. One irksome aspect of the band is that they have no bass player, meaning their hideous low end sound isn't quite fully realized, although the two guitarists make up for it somewhat. The drums have a nice dull sound to them, as everything on this demo does, although they are perhaps a little too low in the mix and just sort of shakily thud rather than commandingly pound. The vocals are ugly primitive yells and growls, similar to 80s death metal maniacs like Necrovore or demo-stage Death. The demo ends with a doomed out cover of Hellhammer's "Triumph of Death".
Necro Schizma were an obscure treasure that was luckily unearthed and spread to a new generation (being reissued on CD recently by From Beyond Productions), and remembered by many of the underground metal geezers of yore. "Erupted Evil" is the utmost in disgusting puke drenched mammoth crawling doom (for its time anyhow) and is strongly deserving of the high praise it regularly receives. It's not only one of the earliest examples of bona fide death/doom, but one of the strongest and most influential, considering their countrymates in Holland would give the genre a huge kickstart with bands such as Asphyx, Mourning, Spina Bifida and Sempiternal Deathreign . This is recommended to fans of such classics, as well as American greats like Cianide, Divine Eve and Winter. The trend of Hellhammer/Celtic Frost-inspired death/doom in the early 90s produced perhaps the best in primitive straightforward doom, and Necro Schizma were on the ground floor as that style came into existence.
