{"id":494383,"date":"2026-02-23T15:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494383\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:57:08","slug":"necrosexual-road-to-rubble-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494383\/","title":{"rendered":"Necrosexual – Road to Rubble Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It was a day like any other at the AMG water cooler when someone mentioned Necrosexual had a new album coming out. Ha, I ought to myself. I vaguely remembered reviewing the Philadelphia band\u2019s Grim1<\/a> debut back in 2018, which I had slapped with a 1.5 due to its sloppy execution and lackluster production. Perhaps I expected too much from a band led by vocalist, guitarist, and bassist \u201cThe Necrosexual,\u201d whose main claim to fame was doing interviews for Metal Injection and MetalSucks while clad in corpse paint. Let someone else take their new album, I thought to myself. I\u2019m sure someone will get enticed by that band name. But week after week went by, and Road to Rubble sat in the promo bin like an unflushed quarter-turd in the office bathroom stall. Somewhere in my heart, I felt it had to be covered, and before I knew it, I had assigned it to myself. That color vomit artwork is certainly worse than the first album\u2019s cover (which was already pretty bad), but given that The Necrosexual has taken eight years to release this second album, perhaps taking the plunge would be worth it?<\/p>\n

Stylistically, not much has changed since Grim1. Necrosexual still play a comedic, sleazeball form of blackened punk-thrash that sounds something like a snottier version of early Celtic Frost or a PG-13 version of Shitfucker. On songs like the opener, \u201cHigh Times in Hell,\u201d the band deliver big, confident riffs over battering mid-tempo drums, all while The Necrosexual delivers his sneering roar. A few tracks also feature brief forays into genuine black metal, complete with frosty riffs underlaid by blast beats. In a move that vaguely calls to mind Devil Master, much of the album also features twinkling synth lines in the background, an effect that makes the second track, \u201cThe Brimstone Brothel,\u201d sound like a Venom-inspired carnival ride from hell.<\/p>\n

\ufeffROAD TO RUBBLE by Necrosexual<\/a><\/p>\n

For all my gripes about Grim1, variety wasn\u2019t one of them, and Road to Rubble features a similar level of diversity with a much higher level of quality. \u201cKiss the Knife\u201d stands out with its catchy, sinister verses that feature the track title sung in a King Diamond-style falsetto, while the more straightforward \u201cLubricator\u201d sounds like an alternate version of Morbid Tales where the dethroned emperor has become a sex slave. As the album progresses into its final third, things get more rock-esque, with the rhythms getting stompier, the leads getting more flamboyant, and the vocals getting more adventurous. \u201cDamned Romance,\u201d for example, is like a blackened 80s cock rock anthem that culminates with a chorus of deep crooning cleans that are impossible not to sing along with. The closer, \u201cHard Leather Woman,\u201d gives off similar vibes while reminding me of Midnight with its gruff, semi-clean vocals.<\/p>\n

\"\"If there\u2019s any gripe I have with Road to Rubble, it\u2019s that stacking so many slower songs in the album\u2019s second half saps a bit of the energy generated by the quicker songs earlier in the record. By the time I\u2019ve reached the eighth of these nine tracks, hearing another slow song like \u201cNocturnal Ignition\u201d isn\u2019t going to make me have a nocturnal emission anytime soon. Fortunately, the stellar production outweighs this quibble, with the guitars sounding full and vibrant, and the overall sound having a slightly raw edge while balancing everything well. The guitar solos are plentiful, colorful, and rocking, and the band sound like they\u2019re enjoying the hell out of themselves over the entirety of these 35 minutes.<\/p>\n

In revisiting Necrosexual with Road to Rubble, I initially wasn\u2019t sure whether my taste had gotten worse or the band had gotten better. Turns out, it\u2019s probably a little bit of the former and a whole lot of the latter. With this album, the band has maintained their penchant for variety while stepping things up in every way, with better songs, better performances, and a better production job. Beyond all that, this album just feels incredibly endearing, with a genuine, fun, and oddly timeless quality that makes Necrosexual sound like a band you want to both listen to and root for. For those who don\u2019t mind a little humor and playfulness in their blackened thrash, I\u2019d say this Road to Rubble is worth taking a ride down.<\/p>\n

Rating: 3.5\/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Black Metal Archives<\/a>
Websites: necrosexual.bandcamp.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/grimmestofalltime<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: February 27th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a day like any other at the AMG water cooler when someone mentioned Necrosexual had a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[43409,25316,10734,23275,198426,49,48,198427,198428,75,186515,155674,5329,341,198429,208,209,198430,198431,34277,57234],"class_list":{"0":"post-494383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-43409","9":"tag-3-5","10":"tag-american-metal","11":"tag-black-metal","12":"tag-black-metal-archives","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-celtic-frost","16":"tag-devil-master","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-feb26","19":"tag-king-diamond","20":"tag-midnight","21":"tag-music","22":"tag-necrosexual","23":"tag-review","24":"tag-reviews","25":"tag-road-to-rubble","26":"tag-shitfucker","27":"tag-thrash-metal","28":"tag-venom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}