Florida’s Worm has spent years refining a very specific kind of atmospheric rot. On earlier milestones like Foreverglade, the band’s sound was less about composition and more about texture. Their suffocating, peat-thick death-doom felt like ecological collapse in slow motion. But on Necropalace, the group traded the humidity of the swamp for the dry ice of the stage. If their previous work was a low-budget slasher filmed in the brush, this is high-operatic Hammer Horror. It’s the velvet-draped theater of gothic arches, synthetic choirs, and superficial fog that looks weird on CRT televisions.
Worm’s shift to symphonic black metal is immediate and unapologetic.
Instead of subterranean murk, the album greets you with pure pageantry. Dungeon-synth overtures and cathedral organs would feel at home with the pixelated dread of Castlevania or the tactile artifice of a Fulci set. In many ways, the record feels like a love letter to an era where blood looked like syrup, and the cardboard sets felt more immersive than modern CGI.
Worm leans so heavily into this theatricality that the line between earnest homage and camp parody dissolves. What elevates Necropalace beyond a corny costume party is how the band maintains its conviction. Phantom Slaughter’s vocals have evolved into a range of serrated shrieks that slice through the orchestral grandeur. Meanwhile, guitarist Wroth Septentrion provides a riot of neoclassical shred that feels closer to 1988 guitar-shop decadence than modern black metal orthodoxy. The inclusion of the legendary Marty Friedman on the fourteen-minute closer, “Witchmoon: The Infernal Masquerade,” serves as the logical endgame for an album built on “more is more” maximalism.
The production on Necropalace is the most subversive element.
In an era of sterile, digitally-perfect metal, Necropalace sounds refreshingly raw, almost like an underground demo from 1994 with a direct-to-video budget thrown at it. Covered in a metric ton of reverb, the mix allows the instruments to revel in cavernous, ’90s-inflected grit, the kind that avoids the “plastic” feel of modern symphonic releases. Just like the best slapdash horror movies featuring gratuitous gore and nudity, Worm knows exactly what they are and who enjoys it.
As a fan of both heavy metal and goth, I will be the first to tell you that the genres are inherently corny. However, that’s why I love it so much. Lacy shirts and leather jackets are to goth and metal as what Chucks and battle vests are to rock n’ roll and punk. They don’t define the sound but go a long way to seal the deal. Fortunately, Worm doesn’t spoil the aesthetics by leaning too far into the camp. While it’s definitely there (check out their music videos), make no mistake: These are vampires, not clowns.
Necropalace succeeds because Worm refuses to wink at the audience.
Continuing the horror movie comparisons, Worm has more in common with Full Moon Features than with the sophistication of A24 or the obnoxious camp of Troma. In a landscape filled with bands like Ghost that lean into tropes for ironic distance, Worm treats their plastic castle as a legitimate fortress. It is a work with a weird brand of confidence in its own artificiality, painted backdrops and all. Most of all, Worm reminds us that, in heavy metal, the most “real” moments often happen when the performance is at its most absurd.
Necropalace is available on Century Media and Bandcamp.