Review Summary: Horror-filled black doom for everyone to enjoy.
Here we are once again, folks. Everyone's favorite bombastic black metal-infused death doom band is back. Worm is a duo from the deep bogs of Florida consisting of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Phantom Slaughter and his partner in crime/guitarist, Wroth Septentrion. I wasn't sure how
Necropalace would measure up to the absolutely classic
Foreverglade, but thankfully, it doesn't try to. This album is another beast entirely that should be judged on its own merit. Worm decided to let their death metal aspect take a back seat, much like the
Starpath split with Dream Unending, in favor of a more synth-driven, gothic black metal album with bits of death and doom metal thrown in for support.
The instrumental intro, ‘Gates to the Shadowzone’, is an eerie segway into the album that sounds like an early Cradle of Filth intro/interlude and kind of gives you a feeling which direction
Necropalace is going in right off the bat. Also, to preface everything I'm saying in this review, this album is a bit of a chore. It's over an hour long and the shortest track (minus the intro) is seven and a half minutes long. With that being said, I think it's the logical jump for Worm as a band. They started as a raw black metal band, transitioned to straightforward, swamp-like death/doom and now are trying their hand at the more over-the-top black metal sound.
The first “real” track is the title track and the Emperor influence is immediate and obvious in the lightning-fast tremolo picking and fantasy-inspired melodies and synths that are drenched all over it. Worm takes this influence and wears it on its sleeve throughout the entire album, but there's also a mystical, 80s inspired doom sound lingering in the background at all times. Yes, Worm has evolved, but they also keep their core sound intact and never sacrifice it for the sake of the synths. Each track is like its own personal journey yet the flow of the album is impeccable and lets the overall atmosphere take hold of the listener from the opening seconds.
Worm is a band that drew me in with their previous album and hypnotized me with their split with Dream Unending. They're a band that can conjure up fantasies and nightmares with their atmosphere and the riffage, particularly on this album mixed with the synths, are trance-inducing to the highest degree. Their decision to add the black metal influences into their sound, plus spicing things up with the romantic gothic influences at times, was a win in my book. It adds another element to the muddy doom sound that they perfected years ago. Worm is here to stay folks and they're one of the best metal bands doing it nowadays.
