Wednesday 13 cranks up the heavy in party album Necrophaze

North Carolina’s horror maestro, Wednesday 13, draws more iron from his blood in new album Necrophaze

By ( Metal Hammer ) published
(Image: © Jeremy Saffer)

You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

FOR FANS OF: Rob Zombie, Murderdolls, Dope

Reanimated by some bloody good performances across 2018, Wednesday 13 sinks his teeth into 12 decompositions that stitch new flesh over his heavier sound. 

Necrophaze opens with narration from Alice Cooper, and John Carpenter-inspired keys from Stone Sour’s Roy Mayorga before bursting into a full metal racket that could have easily come from the soundtrack of a cool slasher flick. 

The monster mash of b-movies, real terrors and gorefests work horrifyingly well with Wednesdays rock, schlock and smokin’ barrels sound. 

Elsewhere, Cristina Scabbia and Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho guest on the surprisingly Lacuna Coil-esque Monster, and there’s even a credible cover of W.A.S.P.’s Animal. Necrophaze is going to be the ideal soundtrack to Halloween 2019.

Wednesday 13's Necrophaze is September 27 via Nuclear Blast and available on CD, MP3 and streaming.

Natasha Scharf
Natasha Scharf
Deputy Editor, Prog

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.