Over the past nine years, one of the great mysteries in heavy metal has been the strange and abrupt disappearance of German tech-death pioneers Necrophagist.  In 2004, they released the remarkably complex album “Epitaph” to universal acclaim. Then, at the height of their popularity, they disappeared.  There were random, unconfirmed sightings of them at concerts and even a band that claimed to be them who performed several shows in Europe in the late 2000s, but the earth had seemingly swallowed up the real Necrophagist.

This morning, the mystery was solved.  After hearing noises that resembled 64^th notes, neighbor Charles Espejismo burst into the house next door and freed the band from their nine year captivity in the basement of a house on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland.   According to Espejismo, he was walking back from McDonald’s, eating a Filet of Fish sandwich when he heard noises that “resembled some of that crazy stuff that was on Gorod’s last two records.”

Concerned that a technical death metal band could have been kidnapped and held hostage in the basement of his neighbor’s house, he burst through the front door and freed Muhammad Suicmez and the rest of the band members from the dungeon that had been constructed in the basement.  Suicmez had been bound, gagged and forced to play arpeggios for weeks on end with no food or water.

This is not the first violent, metal related attack in Cleveland, a city where musicians who employ progressive songwriting techniques are regularly beaten and maimed and hordes of torch-carrying, flesh-eating anti-tech death gangs control the streets at night.  The Cryptopsy Cryps made news back in 2008 when they ritualistically devoured the several members of Dutch metal legends Pestilence after a show at the Agora Ballroom.  The sole survivor of the attack, Pestilence vocalist Patrick Mameli, recalls that the Crips were eating members of the band and howling about how “irregular time signatures and fusion jazz have no place in metal.”  Mameli hid in his guitar case for three days before Cleveland police rescued him.

Now that Necrophagist is free, they are hard at work on a new record.  They plan to spend the next five years tuning their instruments in order to ready themselves to begin the long, arduous process of songwriting.  After that, they have secured ten years worth of studio time in order to allow Suicmez to work on the solo for the first song.  Finally, the band will start recording, a process that should take upwards of 25 years.  The band has assured its fans that they will have something out by 2057 or 2132 at the absolute latest.