Biography

Taking their moniker from a song off Slayer's landmark 1986 album Reign in Blood, Necrophobic is a blackened Swedish death metal group that emerged in the early 1990s with an uncompromising sound and lyrical style that favors themes of anti-Christianity and Viking mythology. Since debuting in 1993 with The Nocturnal Silence, the band has endured numerous lineup changes but has managed to issue a slew of punitive EPs and albums, including Death to All (2009), Womb of Lilithu (2013), and Dawn of the Damned (2020). Necrophobic were formed in 1989 by drummer Joakim Sterner and guitarist David Parland. The pair played with a revolving-door lineup of musicians before the permanent addition of guitarist Martin Halfbahn prior to recording their debut album, The Nocturnal Silence, in 1993. Following the addition of vocalist/bassist Tobias Sidegard, Necrophobic released the four-song Spawned by Evil in 1996 as a teaser for the full-length release Darkside, which bowed later that same year. Third Antichrist was released in fall 2000 through Black Mark Records, but it marked the fourth release from the group to be mishandled by their U.S. distributors. A switch to Hammerheart Records led to Bloodhymns, the first of their traditional death metal releases to see American shores through the label. Hrimthursum arrived in 2006 via Regain Records/Candlelight USA, with the critically acclaimed Death to All dropping in 2009 -- Satanic Blasphemies, a compilation of the band's early material, was released the year prior. Necrophobic continued to flex their blackened death metal muscles in 2013 on the full-length Womb of Lilithu, and again in 2018 with the release of the triumphant Mark of the Necrogram, their first outing for Century Media. Two years later they returned with unrelenting Dawn of the Damned, which saw the veteran group finding new ways to marry brutality and melody. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi