Necrophagist - The Epitaph

Necrophagist is a technical death metal band from Germany. Founded and fronted by Turkish guitarist/vocalist Muhammed Suiçmez. The band is widely recognized and appreciated for their highly technical compositions. Mainly noted for their immaculate sweeping techniques heard on "Onset of Putrefaction" and "Epitaph" written and performed by Muhammed.

At the age of 14, in 1989, Suiçmez wrote the lyrics for "Onset Of Putrefaction". Inspired by Carcass at the time, the lyrics were gory and dark. Stemming from the time he had begun listening to metal, Muhammed had the desire to learn the guitar, as well as compose and create his own songs. Finally, at the age of 15 he could resist the urge no longer, but his strict parents forbade him to learn the guitar. At the time Muhammed's older brother was attending studies in a bigger city, so Muhammed gave his brother the money to buy a guitar for him. His parents found the guitar, and his father destroyed it, but this could not stop Muhammed. For the first three years he played guitar, he practiced every day. Muhammed never took lessons, and taught himself to play guitar. He taught himself how to play other band's songs by ear. He also listened to and studied Yngwie Malmsteen. The soloing style of Muhammed is influenced in a large part by Malmsteen and his neo-classical style, as can be seen with his extensive use of the harmonic minor scale, and use of legato techniques and sweep picking.

By the time Muhammed was 17 he was ready to record some of the music he had written, and, in 1992 he formed Necrophagist, who released their first demo (Requiems Of Festered Gore), consisting of five tracks that same year. All the music and lyrics were written by Muhammed, except one song, which the bassist at that time wrote some of the music for. Muhammed continued writing music, in fact by 1993 (he was just 18) all the songs for Onset of Putrefaction had already been written (but not recorded).


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