LIK - Necro: A Frenzied, Flesh-Tearing Assault from the Depths of Hell

It takes a certain kind of madness to create an album like Necro. A deep-seated, bloodshot-eyed commitment to death metal’s most primitive, most gut-churning traditions. And LIK, those lunatics from Stockholm, have thrown themselves headfirst into the abyss with all the reckless abandon of a berserker charging a machine gun nest. This is not just another record—it’s a surgical dismemberment, a sonic crime scene smeared with sweat, whiskey, and the unmistakable stench of freshly unearthed corpses.

The slaughter begins with “Deceased,” a track that detonates like a grenade in a morgue, spraying riffs and carnage in every direction. Tomas Åkvik howls like a man possessed, his vocals a raw nerve exposed to the flames. “War Praise” is a sledgehammer to the ribs, a relentless march into the jaws of hell. Then there’s “Worms Inside,” an unsettling descent into body horror, where Metallica’s Orion echoes like a fever dream beneath the riff-driven carnage. “Morgue Rat” lurches forward with the psychotic energy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—rusted, blood-soaked, and unrelenting. By the time “Rotten Inferno” drags its wretched carcass across the finish line, with its Autopsy-styled crawl and ominous spoken-word passage, there’s no doubt that LIK have crafted an album that revels in its own sickness.

Producer Lawrence Mackrory (Meshuggah, Katatonia, High Parasite, Decapitated) must have mixed this album in a bunker, because these songs don’t just play—they detonate. The guitars don’t hum, they snarl; the drums hit with the weight of an industrial wrecking ball, and the bass rattles like a coffin lid in an earthquake. This is death metal as it was meant to be—ugly, violent, and completely devoid of compromise.

There is no reinvention here, no pretense, no modern dilution—Necro is death metal in its rawest, most vicious form. Brutal, unrelenting, and perversely fun, this album is a flaming wreck barreling down a mountain pass with no brakes. LIK aren’t just carrying the torch for Swedish death metal; they’ve doused it in gasoline, lit it with a Molotov cocktail, and are watching the whole world burn.

For fans of: Entombed, At The Gates, Possessed

Necro will be released on Metal Blade Records on April 18, 2025.