NEKROMANT - The Nekromant Lives

Released November 9/18 (Ripple Music)

Accessible doomsters Nekromant step forward with their sophomore full length, The Nekromant Lives. As expected, there's some Black Sabbath worship here. Check out 'Voidwalker' with its Geezer-esque bass blubbering opening which transforms into a monolithic, lumbering track, with a riff that must surely have come from one of those bags of riff tapes found in Iommi's closet. (Man, I'd pay good cash to get a hold of those!)

The Swedish group are only too happy to show their other influences, however. The short instrumental 'Exit Spells' sounds like 'Guardians' (without the pianos) from Firepower, which leads into 'Scorpio' which refers to one of those rare Priest forays into doom (think 'Children of the Sun', also off of the English veterans' latest release). There's also lot of dual guitar interplay, that harkens back to old Iron Maiden, that can be found drifting about here too.

That said, my fave tracks here are the more straight forward, up-tempo pounders, those being 'The Eye In The Sky', "Wolves Mountain', 'We Want You Dead' and the title track, which are all egged on by the rhythm section of drummer Joakim Olsson and bassist Mattias Ottosson. If you liked that recent Lucifer II release, you'll likely dig this.

[7.5]