Nephwrack - By the Light

by Paul Raven

published: 8 / 7 / 2007

Label: Nephwrack
Format: CDS

Impressive melting pot of classic metal, hardcore, and early 90's post-thrash from likebale hard rockers Nephwrack

Review

Holy metal melting-pot, Batman! Nephwrack have raided their CD collections for a grab bag of styles and ideas, using tropes and clichés from classic metal, hardcore, and early 90s post-thrash. In the space of one song, we get harmonic squeals, chuggity-chuggity rhythms with the vocals following close on their tail, a chorus with serious shout-along potential, delivered with an almost Iggy Pop-like declamatory feel. And then the middle bridge goes all acoustic, with plucked arpeggios and twiddly blues-rock solo; then the guitars come back in, and it all goes a little bit epic, with the solo reaching for the high registers in true metal style while the vox does muted death growls in the back of the mix as it moves toward the close. All in all, it's not a bad tune at all – though it'd be much improved by having been mastered at a level that didn't require redlining your stereo in order to listen to it. I shall be looking out for this lot on tour to see if they can pull it off live.