Necrophobic - The Third Antichrist (1999)

   Necrophobic formed alongside the oldest Swedish death metal bands and played excellent quality death metal already since their demos from the late '80s.
   However things have been changed a little bit and from their second album they involved black metal incluences into their style too. This style fully materialized on "The Third Antichrist", their third full-lenght album. While "Darkside" sounded like an ordinary black/death mix with atmospheric sound, blackened vocal style and common thrash and heavy metal references, their old school influences were more in focus on "The Third Antichrist". The name of the band by it's Slayer reference leaving no doubts about their main incfluences, and by turning back more into '80s style resulted a phenomena that is frequently appearing in the Swedish metal scene. It's like an imaginary next step after Venom that gives a stronger connection between extreme metal genres. But unlike most similar bands, Necrophobic concentrated more on the extreme features. Intensiveness, fast thrashing and heavy solo themes made their mix of death and black metal more diverse and enjoyable.