WORM

Not every underground band has the necessary ambition and bravado to successfully navigate a switch to a big label. On the evidence of previous releases, most notably 2021's acclaimed "Foreverglade", WORM might not have seemed like most obvious contenders for a focused charge up the industry ladder, but now that shadowy protagonists Phantom Slaughter and Wroth Septentrion have been snapped up by Century Media, they have flamboyantly met the moment with astonishing confidence. "Necropalace" is a huge, almost unmanageably overblown piece of work.

For the uninitiated, WORM shrewdly hedge their bets between black metal, doom metal and death metal, but with an overriding sense of epic splendor that owes most to the first of those three subgenres. On paper, it is a fairly standard amalgam of styles, but the reality of "Necropalace" is that it elegantly transcends easy categorization, aiming so high that its brutal, cinematic excesses seem box-fresh and weirdly unprecedented. There are elements of the familiar being explored here, but while most bands operating in black and death metal impose certain limits on their songwriting and structural templates, WORM give the impression that they could extend these songs indefinitely, turning them into never-ending spiraling fractals of riffs, blastbeats and atmospheric horror. The fact that "Necropalace" is avowedly well produced and unencumbered by elitist sensibilities makes the whole thing even more impressive. Above all else, this is a big, brave heavy metal record, with all the virtuoso indulgence and purist-friendly blood 'n' thunder that such an endeavor entails.

Largely comprising giant, sprawling epics, "Necropalace" is as grand and menacing as its title. Noisily symphonic in execution, the likes of "Halls of Weeping" and "The Night Has Fangs" strike a sublime balance between schlocky, vampiric majesty and authentic, unnerving otherworldliness. But at their core, these are metal songs powered by malicious intent and a dizzying desire to flood the evil zone with wondrous, refined sounds. In particular, "Dragon Dreams" is a sumptuous colossus, with eerie, sinister synths and other classically inclined embellishments illuminating the pristine black metal bombast of WORM's elaborate riff pileups and filling every infernal inch of its 12-minute duration with glittering, obsidian magic. As it reaches the last of several devastating crescendos, "Dragon Dreams" explodes in melodic opulence, before cruelly fading out as lead guitarist Philippe "Wroth Septentrion" Tougas soars upwards into a doomed cosmos. The closing "Witchmoon – The Infernal Masquerade" is even more overwhelming, not least because the legendary Marty Friedman provides an immaculate, expansive solo that surfs across WORM's white-knuckle darkness with extraordinary precision and verve. A 14-minute grand finale that oozes malevolent charisma, it echoes WINTERSUN's transformative prog metal approach, while leaving no doubt that this is only the tip of the iceberg and, assuming that "Necropalace" gets the attention it deserves, WORM will propel their supreme, blackened braggadocio to even more bewildering extremes in future. Rarely has an album been so appropriately named. This is a magnificent and monumental outpouring of metallic ingenuity.