LIK

Standing loud and proud over so many imitators, ‘Necro‘ is the musical equivalent of a classic shock-horror movie that’s drenched in blood and gore and packed with over-the-top extremities.

Delve beyond the zombie-fied cover art created by Stockholm-based tattooist and artist Jens Olsson (Ink Fanatics), ‘Necro‘ serves as a reminder of just how special and exciting the genre is: packed with blood-curdling fantasy stories about war, death, zombies, world apocalypse, murder; and stacked with disgustingly-good rotten riffs.

LIK are proudly staying true to the DNA and ethos of the music they’ve collectively loved since their teenage years – cutting straight to the jugular in true quintessential death metal style.

After recording and releasing their critically acclaimed third full-length, 2020′s ‘Misanthropic Breed‘ during the pandemic, this time around getting back into the studio properly was paramount. And while ‘Misanthropic Breed‘ was recorded at the quartet’s rehearsal space where the band produce all their demos, when it came to recording ‘Necro‘, LIK upped sticks to record at NBS Studio (a.k.a. Necromorbus Studio) in Söderfors, two hours from their home city.

Once again using uber-producer Lawrence Mackrory (Meshuggah, Katatonia, High Parasite, Decapitated), all the music was recorded live over a three-day period, before Tomas headed to Uppsala to record his vocals at Lawrence’s Rorysound Studios. Mackrory has worked with LIK – whose name translates to ‘corpse’ in Swedish – since their 2015 debut ‘Mass Funeral Evocation‘ and throughout their Metal Blade Records’ career that started with 2018′s ‘Carnage‘.

Within ‘Necro‘s 10-tracks, LIK – completed by Niklas “Nille” Sandin (guitar), Chris Barkensjö (drums), and Joakim Antman (bass) – have created a seamless album, diverse in tempo but without losing any of their blood-soaked intensity and relentless in-your-face-attitude listeners have come to expect.

There are twists and turns that keep LIK on a progressive path without straying from their old school trademark sounds inspired by the godfathers Dismember, At The Gates and, of course, Entombed.

“We didn’t really want to repeat ourselves, but of course we wanted the LIK sound,” explains Tomas on the writing trajectory of ‘Necro‘. “We wrote the song ‘War Praise’ first and that was the song we had to write; the one song that was just like what we have done before just to see if we could do something that piqued our interest in the sense of being a bit different but still very much LIK, and then we could go on writing.”

Continuing to fly the Swedish death metal flag across the global stage, ‘Necro‘ is born out of pure love and respect for the genre and its creators’ artistic visions to keep pushing their own musical boundaries.

“The ambition with ‘Necro’ was to make an even better record than the previous albums,” says Tomas. “I think this one is really tied together. As it started growing and the songs got put together we were 100% focused on making that LIK album. I really think we made a really good death metal album, we found the right ingredients to make this one work.”