It took almost four years and a couple of line-up changes but NECROPHOBIC have finally come out with their sophomore release "Darkside" from Black Mark Productions.
       Last year fans got a taste of new vocalist and bassist Tobias Sidegard on the "Spawned By Evil" EP and drummer Joakim Sterner says that fans have received him well.
       "Reactions have been great," said Sterner. "We didn't expect them to be that great."
       While Sterner states that the band has been overwhelmed by the reaction to Sidegard and the EP he says that he hasn't really noticed a difference between old vocalist Anders Strokirk and Sidegard other than the new vocals just being "more insane."
       The positive reaction comes as a bit of a surprise because of the departure of long time guitarist David Parland.
       Parland has now devoted his time fully to DARK FUNERAL, but Sterner says that his exceptional writing talents (Parland's name appears on half the writing credits for "Darkside") won't cripple the band. Sterner attributes Parland's writing prowess to the old 'all work and no play makes death metal musicians somber boys' rule. He said that while he and the other band members, guitarists Martin Halfdahn and Sebastien Ramstedt, went to pubs and concentrated on music at more appropriate times, Parland would be writing constantly.
       As for the four-year wait, the timing of the release of the album hasn't been lost on Sterner, hence the EP last year.
       "We have been away for to long," said Sterner. "We needed to get back in the market again so we choosed the song "Spawned By Evil" because it was our freshest song at the moment."
       Another reason for the four-year delay since "Nocturnal Silence" says Sterner was the production. They wanted it as fresh and loud as possible.
       "I guess it's a natural progression," said Sterner. "The sound has improved more like what we wanted on the first record. Faster and darker sounding. This is actually how we wanted "Nocturnal Silence" to sound."
       The only negative that seems to be bothering Sterner is the black metal tag. Fans and the media have stated that the band has gone further into the black metal genre with their latest release. Sterner disagrees.
       "It's the same stuff really," he said. "I'd like to say it's the same style as before. It's only a natural progression we have to take one step further in rawness. We're not a black metal band. I prefer the term blackest death metal band."
       Despite Sterner's objections it's hard to say that there's no black metal influences to the band. The EP is proof of that with BATHORY and VENOM covers ("Enter the Eternal Fire" and "Nightmare" respectively) as well as the dark concepts on the new CD. take a listen to tracks like "Bloodthirst", a song about vampirism. Then there's "Black Moon Rising" following the dark emotions about the eclipse of the moon.
       If that's not enough to suggest black metal overtones the CD jewel box liner has the lords prayer printed backwards and in Swedish, as well as the lords prayer is also spoken backwards in Swedish as the bonus 11th track.
       Sterner shrugs it off and says that the band included these things because "it was a cool thing to do."
       As for the future, things are quite so bleak and dismal. Sterner says that with more solid line-up and the band focused on it's music the next album will take less than the four-year gap of the previous two as well as a possible North American mini tour. Sources from Black Mark say that there is interest in the Southern States and the Eastern seaboard and if enough dates can be strung together they may hit up into Canada some time in July.