This one is for all my death metal posers out there — all my people who are at least theoretically into the blastbeats-and-grunts genre spawned by Floridian goons like Death and Morbid Angel and Obituary but who barely keep up with the stuff. There are people who stay up on every new development in the death metal world and who have the Maryland Death Fest ticket stubs and sweatpants covered in unreadable band logos to prove it. And then there are those of us who infuriate the actual death metal faithful by dabbling in this most immersive of genres, only really paying attention to one death metal album every year. Last year, it was Blood Incantation’s Hidden History Of The Human Race. This year, it might be Necrot’s Mortal, which dropped today.

The Oakland trio Necrot don’t do the ambitious proggy things with death metal that Blood Incantation do. Instead, Necrot have a fundamentalist take on the genre. They know how to tap right into a primal sound and play the hell out of it — the guttural pit-of-hell vocals, the juddering-jackhammer drums, the ominous and cavernous echo. And they also have riffs. Sometimes, those riffs are even catchy.

Necrot are mainstays in our metal column The Black Market, and they’ve been around for the better part of a decade. Mortal is the follow-up to their 2017 full-length debut Blood Offerings, and it kicks a lot of ass. Also, great cover art. Listen to the album below.

Mortal is out now on Tankcrimes.