Necro Deathmort ‘The Colonial Script’ CD/Digital 2012

With a name that can be translated as ‘Death Death Death’, you know from the off that this will not be a record to cheer up that hipster house-party on a hot summer’s day. London noise/drone/doom duo NDM are back to rain down their misery upon you with their third record of blackened apocalyptic noisescapes. Featuring AJ Cookson (bass, samples, synths, vocals) and Matthew Rozeik (guitar, samples, synths, vocals), the gruesome twosome are once again a cluttered mass of harsh, refracted, desolate volume that owes as much to The Chemical Brothers and Kraftwerk as it does to Godflesh, Sunn0))) and Khanate.

Building on their well-received debut ‘This Beat Is Necrotronic’ and the hell-dredging follow-up ‘Music of Bleak Origin’, ‘The Colonial Script’ is more immediate and direct through use of more identifiable vocals and some straight-up doom guitar riffs alongside a battery of electronic programming. The tracks are shorter, and in some cases simpler, yet the Necro sense of elegant foreboding is still more devastating than ever before.

Rozeik and Cookson have built an elegant semi-concept behind the record, which is also embraced by the eerie artwork adorning the cover: a group of alien settlers terraform a planet colony far, far away, become distorted in their social construct by the introduction of a currency and are then accidentally destroyed by a giant moth. This fictional destruction of an expanding, then contracting, community adds a nervous sense of foreboding to the nuclear density of the like of ‘Imperial’ and ‘Endless Vertex’.  It’s also a horrifying theoretical interpretation of the idiots who both roam and rule our planet who could one day lead us all to the same fate. Perhaps just without the moths…

Sonically the duo have gained ground in the use of crushing sludge leads swaying alongside an arsenal of electronic gizmos to present an atmosphere which straddles both the fantasy and the apocalypse of modern industrial noise. To call this a “metal record” in such blunt terms, however, would be an ignorant oversight and within tracks such as the distorted live mystique of ‘Wretched Hag’ or the vast ocean of terror-tinged aggression on ‘Arrows’, the sheer power of remixing live instruments is truly mesmerising. ‘Led to the Water’ may well be the most straight-up doom entity that NDM have crafted, competing only with ‘The Heat Death of Everything’ from ‘Music of Bleak Origin’ with whom it shares the same howitzer wails alongside deep-diving surges of bass. But at the other end of the spectrum is the barely describable ‘Starbeast’, a homebrewed concoction of guitar, synths and gas canisters which hints at the more tribal end of heavy music – in itself a triumph for pure electronic soundscapes.

As always with Necro Deathmort, only hearing, and then perhaps even only seeing live, is believing, but as far a review can expand on what this electronic force are trying to achieve: they’re breaking new ground in what musical instruments can depict. ‘The Colonial Script’ is as dense and harrowing in concept as it is in execution, and onstage in the flesh backed by their custom light and smoke performance it should be twice as punishing. So much for sticking to the Script, Necro Deathmort have torn it apart in virtually every way.

To gain even greater insight into the warped mind of these London noiseniks, I also conducted a thorough interview with the band where they dissect ‘The Colonial Script’ which you can READ HERE.

Label: Distraction Records
Website: www.necrodeathmort.com

Scribed by: Pete Green