Band:	Akral Necrosis
Album:	The Greater Absence
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	September 2020

01. Silent Altar
02. Oldd Mirror
03. Intonation
04. In Nightmare Shades
05. Man In The Cauldron [album version]
06. Third Curse
07. Revamping The Inside
08. Plaguebound
09. I See The Bright Lights
10. Damnatio Memoriae

I sometimes forget that my country makes metal music once in a while.

Well a country of almost 20 million people must make some metal music, right? It's not like this would be the first time some Romanian music has graced the main page, as the last few years have graced us with some Dirty Shirt, E-an-na, Bucovina, Sur Austru, Katharos XIII, Spectral (ROM), Methadone Skies, Ordinul Negru, Bloodway, Valerinne main page reviews. Hell, even this year we've had Descend Into Despair and Adrian Tăbăcaru up there, with Costin Chioreanu in one of our separate articles. This surely has nothing to do with me either reviewing or suggesting them to my fellow writers. Maybe we're not in such a bad shape. And we got at least two more releases on the radar. Hey, maybe I don't actually forget that my country makes music.

In come Akral Necrosis, who I did have on my radar for a while. Before we go into them, I have to admit the gripes I have with Romanian music. I love a lot of it, from the ones I already mentioned to the ones that didn't get reviewed, but I can't deny that I love it because I am Romanian as well. A lot of it has a lot of value, especially since it seemed to strike a chord with the people who have written those reviews not written by me, as well as other listeners. But a vast majority of our music is just our version of something that people outside do better anyway. We were extremely lucky to have Negură Bunget, otherwise most of our music would just be the Romanian version of heavy metal, the Romanian version of black metal, the Romanian version of stoner metal. And so on. Akral Necrosis are the Romanian version of death-tinged black metal.

This isn't to say that their music doesn't have value outside of being our version of something else, but that it's hard for me to separate my bias, and that you'll likely find a lot of other black/death bands who do this sound even better. But then again, if I bothered to review this, it is because The Greater Absence is still above average, and therefore worth your time. The 65 minutes runtime might be pushing that statement back a bit, but out of all Akral Necrosis albums, this one has the most justification in being this long. Like all of their albums, this one is also sort of a concept album, this time about the superficial inclinations towards the occult of one man, and the dire consequences that said superficiality had. And the fact that the only guest on this album is a poet might be a sign that they took the conceptual part more seriously this time around.

Akral Necrosis is not really an old band, but already being on their third full length and having over a decade under their belt is a sign of some acquired experience. It's not unusual in Romania for bands to take a shitload of time in between their albums, but it seems that these four years have been pretty significant in their growth. Previously their sound was a bit more thrash/death tinged, but The Greater Absence moves it into a slightly more melodic and long-winded shape. Though no song is over 10 minutes, a lot of them push the runtime quite a bit, and yet I can't exactly claim that any of them are overly stretched with fillers, and their songwriting skills manage to fill that runtime with worthwhile melodies and solos, with a sound icy enough to stay black metal, but warm enough due to them having the best production they had so far. The vocals and the guitar tones during a lot of the riffing are a heavy anchor in the black metal world, but the ship is still in waters more and more melodic.

The more I listen to The Greater Absence the more I recede my point that Akral Necrosis is just the Romanian version of black metal. It might've actually elevated them enough for them to be able to stand on its own against similar albums from out of our borders.