[…] the lyrics for this song were written 19 years ago when the first face transplant was performed. It is about a serial killer who hates his face and makes a face of his own, sewn together out of the dried, skinned faces of his victims. The music was written this year, 2024 {Age of Cunt} and is technically a tryptych with an intro and outro. This is how it shall be recorded professionally[.]
—Steph Bathory, 18 Sep 2024 Facebook post to the Necronomicunt page
The influence of H. P. Lovecraft in music can be chronicled in lyrics, individual songs and tracks, albums, and band names. Writers like Gary Hill (The Strange Sound of Cthulhu) and Sébastien Baert (Cthulhu Metal: l’Influence de Mythe) have traced the literary DNA from the early psychedelic rock of the band H. P. Lovecraft through the earliest heavy metal influences in “Behind the Wall of Sleep” (1970) by Black Sabbath to the time of publication. The list is never complete; new generations discover Lovecraft’s mythos, new artists create new bands, compose and perform new pieces. It is all so wonderfully weird.
Necronomicunt is a relatively recent example. Band members include vocalist/lyricist Steph Bathory/Cuntess Dracula (former vocalist of Bathom and SpitRoast Sluts Not Dead); guitarist Tommy/Cutrifiend Punt; drummer Matt Hills/Omzferatu, and bassist Aaron Richmond/Yeti (all information from Encyclopedia Metallum). As for the style:
Necronomicunt merges the commandment of Doom with the speed of D-Beat Punk Rock. From the black-tar-filth, cud of decay; the satanic riffs primordially ripple through, oscillating faster than the speed of light, from the bottom of a black hole. (Bandcamp)
“D-beat” is a hardcore punk style named after a characteristic drumbeat; “Doom” metal is a descendant of heavy metal that typically uses a slower tempo and down-tuned guitars. Put the two together, and you have a sound that is heavier than your typical punk band but more frantic and energetic than a typical doom album. Very atmospheric, but it’s got a beat you can mosh to. Steph Bathory’s vocal style contains the fast pace of punk singing with death metal growls. Not unintelligible to the trained ear, although it might take new listeners a few listens to pick out the lyrics (I tried to find the lyrics, but they’re not on Bandcamp or Spotify, although there are a few on the band’s Facebook page). Necronomicunt is often categorized as sludge metal, and not without reason, but don’t focus too heavily on labels; that way lies madness.
In terms of content and aesthetics, Necronomicunt clearly takes inspiration from black metal (a heavy metal variant with Satanic themes/content/trappings) and horror, with songs about vampirism, serial killers, Satanism, etc. Despite the name, Lovecraft doesn’t appear to be a major lyrical influence per se, although the Facebook page includes the lyrics for an eponymous song titled “Necronomicunt” (Facebook, 14 Jan 2023):
…and given the name of the band is an obscene homage, and its musical descent from Black Sabbath, we can definitely say they’re somewhere in the Lovecraftian musical family tree.
Cuntess (2025) is Necronomicunt’s first EP, available on Bandcamp and for promotional purposes on Youtube and Spotify, and consists of four songs:
- Face Transplanter (05:44)
- Pyramid of Death (04:06)
- Cuntess Dracula (04:58)
- Green Phlegm (05:06)
“Face Transplanter” was the standout and also appeared in The 100 Best Releases of 2025; “Green Phlegm” also appeared on Pest Records Online Compilation vol. 18, although personally I think “Cuntess Dracula” and “Pyramid of Death” are better fits for horror fans. There are far worse ways to spend 20 minutes or £6.66, and I’ll bet their live shows are loud and energetic, if that’s their studio performance. One live video from the 2023 Easton Punk Fest suggests the distortion gets pretty extreme, but people are moving to the beat.
Real question: why Necromicunt?
Because it’s fun. It’s transgressive to the point of almost being silly, but it communicates forbidden, occult, dark, nasty, obscene, and in-your-face. Which is perfect because that’s exactly the kind of sound the band has. So it fits, it works, it is appropriate in context. It may offend a few prudes, but that’s rather the point. Take it like the bright markings on a toxic frog: experience at your own discretion.
The weird thing is is, they’re not the only ones. There’s a Canadian band called Necronomikunt; and at least three different bands have released songs titled “Necronomicunt”: Alastor in 2000, Ghoulmancer in 2014, and Reanimator in 2022. That’s a lot of Necronomicunts! And there are undoubtedly more. The coincidental combination of consonants has inspired many different creators to fuse Lovecraft’s epic title with an expletive, and the juxtaposition and the mouth feel both work. There have been plenty of variations in this line over the years: the Necronomicum ex Mortis in the porn film Evil Head (2012) and the four-issue run of Necronomicum: The Magazine of Weird Erotica (2014) being two examples; readers might also compare “Necrophallus” by Makino Osamu (牧野修), which also takes Lovecraft’s basic concept in strange and deliberately taboo-defying new directions.
Bobby Derie is the author of Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others and Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos.
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Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein 