One day, Killjoy decided to take Necrophagia down from the dusty shelves — and why dusty shelves, you ask? Because between 1987 and 1998, there was an 11-year gap... He knocked on the door of Boston’s most notorious man and asked him to write lyrics. But this wasn’t going to end with just Killjoy and Mr. Anselmo. Anselmo booked a plane ticket and flew in Gorelord straight from Norway, while Killjoy convinced Wayne Fabra and also brought Opal from the neighborhood. The real goal wasn’t just making music — it was opening the gates of hell.
The following night in Wellsville, Ohio, the fog was so thick you couldn’t see a thing. The night of the living dead had arrived, and this savagery was named Holocausto De La Morte. This is a masterpiece filled with brutality, horror, satanism, cruelty, filth, carrion, perversion, and every kind of disgusting evil imaginable.
Tracklist:
Bloodfreak
Embalmed Yet I Breathe
The Cross Burns Black
Deep Inside, I Plant the Devil’s Seed
Burning Moon Sickness
Cadaverous Screams of My Deceased Lover
Children of the Vortex
Hymns of Divine Genocide
For those who listen to this album — if you wonder how such an album is even made, you need a friend like Pepper Keenan, your own house, a pile of Italian horror movies to watch, and a breakfast combo of beer and pizza. Otherwise, there’s no way something like this could come to life. Those disgustingly sticky melodies, the extremely simple drums, endlessly repeating riffs, and Killjoy’s vocals spewing the devil within his soul like blood...
Speaking of the lineup, we had already seen Anselmo pick up a guitar in the “Vulgar Display Of Power” video doing some guitar etudes. Wayne Fabra, who was a vocalist in Christ Inversion, here stepped behind the drums and began furiously tearing through the kit. Gorelord, who now rips in his solo projects, was already laying down the bass and creating the overall savage sound of the album under the nickname Frediablo. Killjoy showcases a wide range of vocal styles with insanely intense screams.
Simply put, with this album, Necrophagia alone gave a whole new dimension to the “Extreme Metal” scene.
When it comes to the album cover, the band clearly blended influences from Lucio Fulci’s films, with direct references to horror classics like Zombie, City Of The Living Dead, House By The Cemetery, and Beyond. You can even spot “Lucio Fulci” engraved on a tombstone in the artwork.
The album as a whole is perfectly summarized by the track “Blood Freak”—damn, what a song! It was inspired by a horror movie shot back in 1972, and you can hear snippets of the film’s dialogue right in the intro. It’s like a Lucio Fulci nightmare brought to life, something the band themselves mention in the lyrics. No other group has been able to inject the creepy organ tones of a keyboard so seamlessly and brutally into their music. The guitars hammer out primitive riffs that keep repeating relentlessly, while Killjoy spits hellfire on you with a vocal delivery that makes you wonder how one person can sound like that—agonizing screams morphing into guttural growls and vice versa. Just watching the music video is enough; it’s impossible to put into words.
“Embalmed Yet I Breathe” opens with a cruel, sluggish intro, then erupts with grinding guitar riffs and off-kilter drum rhythms, accompanied by Killjoy’s phlegmy growls, creating a vile atmosphere. The lyrics show that the gore theme has reached its peak here.
Though this album might be considered aesthetically “low” by normal standards, its rawness, filth, and utter lack of polish are precisely what give it its charm and beauty in the eyes of those who understand the scene. If you handed this album to someone who’s into the most “extreme” of bands (children of gülüm, lol), their psyche might break down, and they’d probably cry, “Mom, take me to the doctor!” Even if they listened for ten years, they’d never grasp what this band accomplished.
“The Cross Burns Black”—what kind of idea is this? Who knows what twisted minds wrote it. Killjoy screams about “deep-seated hatred, collapsing cities, cursed armies, the winds of mass slaughter spreading contagiously,” basically describing the downfall of civilizations. Musically, it follows the same pattern as the first two tracks and clearly portrays Christianity’s destruction by Satan. Then Killjoy plants the seeds of the devil deep inside on “Deep Inside, I Plant The Devil’s Seed”, which starts heavier and gloomier than the other tracks. This weight crashes down like a torturous nightmare before suddenly accelerating again to the peak of their signature grinding style. The track also features some intriguingly captivating melodies.
On “Burning Moon Sickness”, you meet a necromantic zombie from the music video. The sound is a bit faster here, with Killjoy’s curses as usual. Toward the end, there’s an indescribably chilling scream, reportedly the live scream of a woman being cooked on a stove...
“Cadaverous Screams of My Deceased Lover” begins with wailing guitars accompanied by distant whispers, seemingly the embodiment of endless torment. Vocals, drums, and guitars are wrapped in a crushingly heavy rhythm with brain-melting melodies repeating relentlessly, and throughout, devilish whispers echo from the depths until the final second—except for a brief burst of speed in the middle. The guitars grind so heavily here it sounds like a power drill running out of battery, slowing down gradually.
The intro to “Children Of The Vortex” brings another horror movie atmosphere, with screams of a man being devoured by zombies. The track fully expresses Necrophagia’s filth and brutality, with Killjoy’s guttural vocals pushed to the extreme and sludge-like gooey guitars wrapped in shifting tempos.
The closing “Hymns of Divine Genocide” is a nearly 1.5-minute outro consisting of eerie whispers and muffled murmurs.
Always grinding, always vile, always filthy... Forget Death Metal or Gore Metal—this album is the finest example of Horror Metal. It chills you to the bone, freezes your blood, invades your nightmares like a nightmare, and nothing will ever be the same for you again.