Ancient Necropsy - Apocalyptic Empire

The Columbian singer/guitarist/drummer Ivancient has released another CD. He has one other and has a track on a Mortician Tribute called, conveniently, A TRIBUTE TO MORTICIAN. I did not make a mistake. One man does all this work, and work it is. Ancient Necropsy is a brutally powerful project headed by one man named Ivan Jaramillo (real name). He plays everything in the studio but has a drummer to join him live. On his Myspace link, he has a You Tube Video made for his fans to watch him play guitar. Fans of talent-metal will want to watch him play and support his music in the same way. He is real riffer (Or, rather, one who plays fast and slicing metal-guitar riffs). APOCALYPTIC EMPIRE marks a work from the new metal scene making due out there with no bass player. I have realized that some of today’s most sick bands are playing sans bass because the guitar players are playing so heavily. Ivancient is exactly this kind of guitar player. Another awesome example is Pulmonary Fibrosis. I do not want to see the bass go obsolete, but these guys are doing fine without them.


Ivancient’s vox are definitely twisted growls, and certainly are guttural influenced, but they are not quite as low as the most sick guttural examples (Cutterred Flesh and Disembowled Corpse). They sound more like they are carried by air and less by throat control. Also, I assume that on tracks such as “Enthroned At The Apocalyptic Empire” that Ivancient is layers his voice over his voice recorded at a different time because there are some seconds in that cool track that seem kind of harmonized within the sick growl structure (if such a thing as harmony in said context is possible). I might be wrong about his use of technology in the recording process and would kindly appreciate an e-mail from Ivan to clarify it for me. The track right after “Enthroned At The Apocalyptic Empire” is called “Ridiculous Preacher” and this track displays terribly powerful riffing. The vocals are extant of course but the take up far less of the whole song because the guitar dominates.
My main critique of the CD is that even though Ivan is a real talent in the genre, the CD also sounds like it was recorded in an amateur method in that the drums are rather too repetitive for my taste. Also, the song writing variations do not change up enough. I would have liked to see Ivan really emphasize song writing and deep dark forms in his tunes instead of just playing the (seemingly) same song over and over. I have found enjoyment listening to APOCALYPTIC EMPIRE the 4 or 5 times I heard it before I sat to write this, but something in that last play started to tire me and I realized it was that lack of real songwriting. Don’t get me wrong, every track on the CD is super, but overall, I think its sameness flattens the experience a bit. Not too much, but enough to notice. Still, I hope Ivan keeps it up because there are great projects in him that need a bit more time to distil.


1. Intro: The Chosen One
2. Enemies Incineration
3. Ghost Of Death Valley
4. Malignant Matter's Collapse
5. Enthroned At The Apocalyptic Empire
6. Ridiculous Preacher
7. Fallen Angels Executed
8. Cold Mountains Of Death
9. Injured By Extrasensorial Communications
10. Undethronement Of Inner Power
11. Old Man Decrepit Frozen
12. Nuclear Winds (The Call Of The Darkness)
13. The False Prophet
14. Master Of Knowledge
15. Blizzard Devastation
Mutilated Records
Reviewer: twansibon
Feb 26, 2009

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