Review
Turning their backs on the mossy woodland folklore and pastoral paganism of their earlier records, Green Lung trade the countryside for the soot and sepulchral vaults of Victorian London. Rather than smoothing down their edges, Necropolitan strips away excess studio upholstery to chase a leaner, immediate wallop.
The pacing is brisk and relentless. "Dance to the Grave" and "Necropolitan Line" lean into locomotive rhythms, pitting snarling guitar fuzz against John Wright’s biting Hammond organ in feverish call-and-response solos. Tom Templar projects his vocal delivery with unabashed theatricality, riding comfortably above dry, punchy percussion.
The turn toward metropolitan decay leaves ample room for macabre grandeur. A brief pocket of acoustic guitar and parlor piano on "Together in Death" offers eerie quiet before the closing "To the Gallows Born" mounts an executioner's march, layering wah-drenched leads and shimmering Mellotron swells into a heavy, resonant finale.
