Chances are, most people reading this review would have grown up with EXHUMED being a significant presence in their playlists or as posters on their walls. The band has been greatly influential is bring Grindcore elements to traditional Death Metal, making them one of the best in the game. With their newest release, Necrocracy, they continue to live up to that name. For a band that has been evolving since 1990, they have certainly brought much along with them in terms of creative input to this next album. They have all their technical goodness present here with them, as evidence by the intense drumming and crazy riffs - one the highest quality ones I've ever heard - thundering throughout song after song.

"Coins Upon The Eyes" opens very impressionably with its loudness and unabashed brutality, and is one of the more chaotic songs in terms of beat and rhythm. The second song, "The Shape of Deaths to Come" was on the other hand, more groovy. The intro of course started in the same vein as the song before it, but the verse soon trotted away into a steady, heavy groove. It is through this groove that the band is able to build much of their technical goodness on. Their emphasis on the bass guitar works wonderfully with the heavy guitars, which never overpower the rhythm section of the music. The vocals too are skilfully diverse. Although Matt Harvey takes on a later-Chuck Schuldiner style of high-pitched, clear screaming, he reverts back sometimes to guttural growls and this gives the songs a range of interesting sounds, from the ones supplied by the instruments to the one supplied by his voice.

The best thing about this album however, is the lead guitars. The solos had an interesting old school vibe about them and were surprisingly melodic. For songs that were rather straightforward when it came to rattling out power and brutality, the solos were wonderfully soulful and took their time exploring different areas on the fret board, lingering in some places and blazing through the rest in a frenzy of creativity. Of course, they did not fail to impress and this was both refreshingly high-quality yet fearless, a winning combination we can always expect from EXHUMED.