Necrot – Blood Offerings

“Blood Offerings” is the debut full-length from American death metal band Necrot. This group’s primary influence is anything from the early 1990s. The album is a horror-filled, downtuned experience, with more than enough riffs to satisfy fans of old-school death metal. Predictably, many of these riffs are various patterns of tremolo picking, with the occasional chunkier riffing built in. Most songs have a riff or two that uses what sounds like minor-third trills (much in the way that Cannibal Corpse absolutely worships that type of riff). The guitar tone is murky enough that most of the riffs sound very similar, but all of them hit reasonably hard.

Necrot has nailed the production on “Blood Offerings”, and there is little to reveal that this album was released in 2017. Everything from the thunderous double bass, to the ghoulish vocals sounds as though it was recorded 25 years ago. Similar to that era, they also use blast beats where appropriate, rather than the more modern trend to shoehorn them in as often as possible. In many ways, Necrot’s sound has a definite thrash influence to it, even if the music the band plays isn’t thrash. For example, they have a decent number of riffs that are simply downpicking for the first half, followed by a few chords or palm-muted notes in the second half. 

The only real flaw of “Blood Offerings” is its adherence to death metal’s “no songwriting” policy that seemingly infected the subgenre after the first wave of bands finished writing classic albums. After 5 listens, there isn’t a single memorable song or moment on this record. It all pretty much sounds the same, and lacks any hooks. It’s absolutely a great collection of riffs, but if you’re looking for much beyond that, travel back to anytime between 1989-1992 and throw a dart. This would be a far superior release with more formulaic songwriting. Nevertheless, “Blood Offerings” delivers exactly what you’d expect it to, and for that reason, it is an essential listen for major fans of old-school death metal.

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Highlights

All of it

Final Rating

3.7/5 or 74%. 

Written by Scott