Necronautical have released "Enemy of the Grave", the song that closes The Second Death, as the first thing anyone hears from it. The album arrives on 4 December through Vendetta Records, a new label for them.
Leading with the closer is unusual and, in this case, deliberate. "For me, this track is the crown of the album, closing out the chaotic journey it follows," said Naut, who sings and plays guitar, and who describes the song as being about what endurance leaves behind: "the strength and resolution we gain through our enduring suffering and perseverance."
The title holds the album's idea. A person dies once when the body stops and again when their name is spoken for the last time, and what the band are interested in is the distance between those two moments.
Five years went into the record, their fifth, after Slain in the Spirit in 2021, and the Manchester band's range on it is described as running from ambient gothic passages to blackened death metal. Killian Monson made the accompanying film.