NECROPHAGIA's importance to and influence over the death metal genre was firmly established with their utterly classic debut album, Season of the Dead, in 1987. While 1990's posthumous Ready for Death was intended to be NECROPHAGIA's debut album, its highly contentious nature was deemed an "official bootleg" by the band, who had already ceased to exist following the release of Season of the Dead. However, NECROPHAGIA were undead and eternal, and the band rose from the grave in 1998 with the release of Holocausto de la Morte. The band's true second album, Holocausto de la Morte featured a brand-new lineup, fronted (as always) by founding vocalist/lyricist Killjoy. While something of a loosely guarded secret at the time, this NECROPHAGIA lineup featured one "Anton Crowley" on guitar, who was, in fact, Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo. Either way, Holocausto de la Morte kept the NECROPHAGIA spirit intact and then some, as Crowley's disgusting tone and swampy riffing, in particular, put the album into darker and more delirious territory than most death metal of the time. Neither "old school" nor a total throwback to Season of the Dead, Holocausto de la Morte honorably expanded the NECROPHAGIA lexicon in truly sick fashion, and more importantly brought the band to a whole new legion of fans, who thankfully got to experience the band's evolution over the next two decades.
