Necrocracy
Necrocracy is the sixth studio album by American death metal band Exhumed. The album was released on August 2, 2013, by Relapse Records. A music video was released for the lead single, "Coins upon the Eyes". The album was described by frontman Matt Harvey as slower, more melodic, and darker than the band's other albums. The only album to feature bassist Rob Babcock, the first to feature drummer Mike Hamilton and the return of Bud Burke who now switched to guitar as opposed to bass on Slaughtercult and Anatomy is Destiny. Songwriting and recording. The writing for several  of the songs on "Necrocacy" began during the preceding "All Guts, No Glory" session. Harvey indicated that the tempo variation heard on "Necrocacy" was a conscious decision that emerged while playing shows in support of "All Guts, No Glory": "the live shows really convinced me that what the last album really lacked was any kind of slower, heavier groove stuff, so I knew early on that I wanted to incorporate more of that kind of shit into "Necrocracy"." Relative to its previous recording sessions, Harvey describes Exhumed as "under-rehearsed" going into the studio. As a result, "a lot of  the ideas on the record, fills, transitions, that kind of stuff, were really spontaneous and fresh. It was a cool contrast to so much death metal that you hear that sounds so calculated and contrived." The pacing of the album also gave Exhumed additional opportunities to explore its sound in the studio, according to Harvey: "The songs being a little slower also allowed a little more breathing room for stuff to happen. We also worked out a lot of harmonies and stuff in the recording studio, simply because we hadn't played the songs with two guitars yet in the  rehearsal room, so that was fun and ended up bringing some unexpected challenges and pleasant surprises." Lyrics. With "Necrocracy", Matt Harvey wrote lyrics that applied gore aesthetics to politics. He noted that the "political underpinnings" of the album were due to the fact that "the Presidential election was in full swing the whole time I was writing, and that really kind of inspired the whole direction of the lyrics." Despite the political theme, Harvey continued his exploration of gore: Reception. Neil Pretorius of About.com said the "slower, groovier and much more melodically inclined" approach of "Necrocacy" provided for a more  mature and accessible sound that puts it on par with Carcass's "Surgical Steel" as one of the best death/goregrind releases of the year. Praising the album's mixture of "profane ferocity" and "clinical, "Heartwork"-esque production", David Perri of Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles said, "Exhumed has crafted and executed what will surely be amongst the top 1 percent of 2013". Neil Arnold of Metal Forces expressed the opinion that with "Necrocacy", "the Californian psychopaths have simply cemented their place alongside Carcass as leaders in a field swamped in clogged up gore". However, the album did receive some criticism. Joe  DeVita of Loudwire conceded that "there are moments of brilliance among relatively stagnant songwriting", but ultimately concluded that "Necrocacy" is "their most domesticated album to date".