ASPHYX Release Tenth Studio Album ‘Necroceros’
January 22nd, 2021
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Dutch death metal band Asphyx issued tenth full-length studio album Necroceros on January 22nd, 2021 through Century Media Records.
Necroceros was recorded at Tom Meier’s Tom Meier Studio in Enschede, Netherlands and guitarist’s Paul Baayens’ The Mörserstudio. Mixing and mastering duties fell to Sebastian “Seeb” Levermann at Greenman Studios in Arnsberg, Germany. Cover artwork was once again created by German graphic designer and illustrator Axel Hermann.
Martin van Drunen commented: “The first recordings for Necroceros started somewhere in November 2019. Mainly just rough ideas. We hired Tom’s studio for a couple of jam-sessions so we could record as soon as we thought something had potential. We finished about six / seven songs, but after a few listens we decided there had still quite some work to be done.
“After the three previous albums and this one being Asphyx’s 10th official full studio record, we were very well aware that the standard had to be incredibly high. Our advantage was that for the first time we had a steady line-up. Since Incoming Death [2016] we were damned good ‘worked in’ together, one ‘felt’ what the other wanted or where he was music-wise going. With Paul having tons of riffs on the shelves, the earlier takes and the unexpected rapidly spreading Covid-19 outbreak and thus all our gigs being canceled one after the other, we booked Tom once more for a bunch of jam-recordings. Which turned out marvelously.
“It took two weekends to finally arrange all songs and tape the drum-tracks. Going completely berserk while playing and being totally satisfied with the variety, rawness, brutality and dynamics of each particular track, we were 100% certain that we were heading in the right direction.
“Long before all the above was happening, I already had introduced Necroceros as a working title. It came out spontaneously, sounded powerful and since we used the word ‘Death’ in every release-title, so did ‘Necro’. The idea was a sci-fi fantasy entity on an eternal course, existing only to devour planets, turning universes into meaningless voids. And while the boys were laying guitars and bass over the drums I searched and wrote the themes and lyrics for every single track.
“To mix with Seeb was a shot in the dark, but he had told me one of his wishes was to ever be able to mix a Death Metal album for a band like Asphyx. And since we wanted a fresh input, we gave him a chance by letting Seeb do a test and it fused simply excellent.
“As always, we passed the working title on to Axel Hermann to skizz about and let him throw his morbid imagination over it with detailed bits and pieces. And once more he didn’t let us down with another brilliant masterpiece.
“And here we are. Something old, something new, something crushing, something sparkling, something alcoholic, something genius, but all very, very Asphyx!”
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The track listing is as follows:
01. ‘The Sole Cure Is Death’
02. ‘Molten Black Earth’
03. ‘Mount Skull’
04. ‘Knights Templar Stand’
05. ‘Three Years Of Famine’
06. ‘Botox Implosion’
07. ‘In Blazing Oceans’
08. ‘The Nameless Elite’
09. ‘Yield Or Die’
10. ‘Necroceros’
Asphyx’s line-up is as follows:
Martin van Drunen (vocals)
Paul Baayens (guitar)
Alwin Zuur (bass)
Stefan “Husky” Hüskens (drums)
Directed by Maurice Swinkels (Younique Film), music videos were filmed for the tracks ‘Botox Implosion’ and ‘The Nameless Elite’. In addition, an official lyric video was created for the song ‘Knights Templar Stand’. All three clips can be viewed below.
Ninth studio record Incoming Death was released in September 2016 via Century Media.
