Necromance – Never Look Back

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Necromance are a young outfit from Whitehall, PA who draw their influences from traditional and progressive metal bands like Iron Maiden and Savatage and this is their first EP since forming in 2004. Never Look Back is a very accomplished debut demo EP. The song construction is remarkably good, particularly in the later tracks. The opening brace of the title track and Stand Up And Fight are mid-paced traditional metal songs with neat guitar work, but aren’t going to set the World alight. It’s from the excellent eponymously titled instrumental at track three onwards that things step up a gear. The fast riffing of The End of Our Days and Breaking The Chains recalls Dio and Saxon initially, but the build up in the latter is superb. A nice bridge and different vocal melodies change the complexion of the track and will likely serve well in the live environment. The best is saved for last. Eight-minute epic Destiny Calls starts with a short acoustic intro and moves through several different passages with comfortably the albums best guitar soloing from Jeff Teets and vocal melodies that suit Sarah Teets’ style perfectly. An absolutely blistering track from start to finish. And then just in case their prowess wasn’t already evident, a simply magnificent acoustic track in Remember closes the disc where Sarah really shines throughout and Jeff turns in a beautiful acoustic solo. The maturing of the band is evident across the tracks on this EP, so the next release should be better still.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2009, EPs, Heavy Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Unsigned, Necromance