NECROMANDUS — Orexis of Death plus... (review)

NECROMANDUS — Orexis of Death plus... album cover Album · 1999 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
cannon
Don't be fooled the album cover and the title. If you're expecting a slab heavy, doom laden, riff-tearing Sabbath-esque assault, you're not going to find it here. If that's what you're searching for, check out Supernaut's self-titled debut from 1973 or First Daze Here from Pentagram. Orexis Of Death is more in line of hard progressive rock/heavy prog though it does exude a medieval ambience at times. Closer to the early incarnations of Wishbone Ash and Jade Warrior or even Black Widow, and obvious influences from King Crimson and yes, even Yes. With all that being said, this is an excellent album. I would tend to tag it more a heavy prog album than proto-metal.

Back in the "old days", relatively speaking, the '80's to be more precise when I was in full blown addiction of collecting vinyl there was many myths and legends attaining to rare, obscure, limited pressings and even unreleased recordings from the sub-genre of proto-metal that were rightly or wrongly attributed without much merit. Rumours would be a better word to use as these much hyped lost gems were unwarranted on many occassians and for the most part there was reasons why: bad production and sound quality, finicial backing, label promotion, weak material, etc., and in some cases the circumstances were unfortunate, this album being a perfect example.

The band was managed by Sabbath guitarist, Tony Iommi and Necromandus had laid down the tracks, but in 1973, Sabbath was huge and very busy, thus Iommi had kept putting off the final steps to get the record off the shelf and then guitarist Brian Dunnery announced he was leaving the band and Iommi axed the single and album slated for release as he believed the band didn't have it without Dunnery.

Fast forward to 1999 and finally the music was released. I heard this from the guys at my local vinyl shop and put in my order for the album. Some six weeks later the LP had arrived from the U.K. Man I was surprised. This wasn't was I was expecting. I wasn't really dissappointed, more surprised than anything. Damn, this is really good progressive rock and the production and sound quality just magnificant for 1973, especially for an album that was "shelved". The album was released again in 2005 as, "Oxeris Of Death plus..." that was remastered with a couple of bonus tracks. Now, I don't know if this was the case for the first issue, referring to being remastered. Anyways, it really doesn't matter. It's terrific.
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