The old school death metal movement has changed so much over the years with many artists replicating the traditional HM2 influences from Dismember, Entombed and early Grave to the more contemporary, modernized and structured sound of death metal with bands such as Cut Up, Firespawn, Lik, Fearal, Gatecreeper, Revel In Flesh and others who capture the raw, cohesive and buzz saw like approach making it a nice approachable way to make fans of the genre, myself included to find what they’re looking for. Today, Baest is a band I’ve been meaning to checkout after reading many reviews online saying that this band from Denmark who’s been around since 2015 has gotten many buzz talk within the underground scene and truth be told, these critics weren’t wrong. Baest’s style is very similar to the late 90’s early to mid 2000’s style of death metal ranging anywhere from Hypocrisy, Bolt Thrower, Bloodbath, Morbid Angel, Entrails, Vomitory and many more so to speak have all seem to grabbed my attention and after giving this new album, Necro Sapiens a listen, I was very impressed and my expectations have met successfully upon listening to this album front to back.
Released through Century Media Records, Necro Sapiens is the third full-length recording effort and is the continuation to their last release, Venenum in 2019. Necro Sapiens to me feels a much more improved, structured and well crafted album as I truly feel the music, craftsmanship, detail and contents on this album is much more enhanced and balanced very well as this record is full of captivation, imagination and the artistic talent these musicians whom in my eye surely studied very hard to capture emotion and heaviness onto the record is perhaps the biggest highlight on the album. Lyrically, Baest’s context of different subject themes range anywhere from the apocalypse, religious metaphors, deadly sins and punishment as most of the lyrics and contents are based off the old and new testaments from the bible but you really need to have a analysis based off the analogical discussions Baest is heading into to get a sense what the music is meant.
Tracks such as Genesis, Sea Of Vomit, Czar and Towers Of Suffocation do have some traces of death/doom metal signatures within the production aspects of things as this album is also quite expensive and horizontal, meaning Baest incorporated many hybrids of extreme metal whether its death doom, traditional death metal, even some blackened death metal and melodic death metal tendencies as the soundscapes and barriers carrying the instrumentals to bring fourth a huge explosive and effect to the album make it seem that Baest went above and beyond to make Necro Sapiens a experimented, authentic and stabilized album this band has done to date. Even on the secondary half of this album where the vocals tend to bring a maddening, but yet emotional delivery on the song Purification Through Mutilation where I’m sensing a bit of a Septicflesh and Hypocrisy influence as the vocals range anywhere of the highest to high screams to the guttural lows bellowing and channeling throughout the song is very impressive so to speak where I truly feel the vocals, guitars, bass, drums and mixing and mastering on this album is very fierce and complex in comparison to other Baest albums truly shines. Necro Sapiens is very highly gonna be on my favorite albums of the year list in 2021 and if you’re fans of prior Baest releases, Necro Sapiens is gonna be a establishment for many years in the death metal scene.
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
