Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar

Let’s be blunt: Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar is not for the faint of heart or the clean of ear. Where later albums feature pristine guitar tones from Tim Lyakhovetskiy and Aaron Minich, "Stenchrar" sounds like it was recorded inside a dumpster behind a mead hall.

The song structure is deceptively simple: Verse, Wall of Noise, Scream, Wall of Noise, Outro. There are no guitar solos. There are no keyboard interludes. It is a blunt-force trauma of grime.

To understand Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar, you have to rewind to 2009. Two years prior, the band had released their debut album, Goblin Island, a raw, black-metal-infused folk romp recorded on a shoestring budget. But it was the follow-up EP, simply titled Stench, that introduced the track "Stenchrar."

While Goblin Island was an adventure, Stench was a swamp. The EP was recorded live in a practice space with a single microphone, intentionally pushing the limits of lo-fi aesthetics. "Stenchrar" was the title track’s evil twin—a deep cut that never made it to streaming services for nearly a decade. The portmanteau "Stenchrar" combines "Stench" (the EP's theme) and "Rar" (a goblin war cry or a reference to "rare").

In 2012, when the band signed to Mystery Box Records, they re-released Stench digitally. That was the first time most modern fans encountered Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar. The track was immediately divisive. Fans expecting the melodic death metal of Power (2015) were instead greeted with what sounded like a garden hose being throttled by a troll.

Nekrogoblikon’s lyrical content has always blended fantasy imagery with real-world references and meta-humor. Stenchrar continues this by exploring: nekrogoblikon stenchrar

The result is an album that’s entertaining on the surface and occasionally surprisingly reflective underneath.

For a song that was buried for years, Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar has achieved legendary status live. Between 2010 and 2014, the band would occasionally pull it out as a "punishment" for the encore.

Veteran fans recall the "Stenchrar Rule": If the band plays it, you must start a "mud pit." In the absence of actual mud, fans would pour beer on the floor or throw water bottles. At the 2011 Nekro-Fest in Santa Cruz, the band allegedly stopped mid-song to spray the crowd with a hose filled with coffee grounds and water.

Guitarist Alex Alereon (founding member) once described the live dynamic in a 2016 Reddit AMA:

"Stenchrar is our reset button. When we feel the crowd is too clean, too showered, we play it. It scares the posers. It brings us back to the basement. Nicky usually loses his voice halfway through and just starts hitting a trash can lid." Let’s be blunt: Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar is not for

Since the departure of that era’s lineup and the arrival of the Welcome to Bonkers production crew, "Stenchrar" has been retired. The band confirmed in a 2024 interview that they will "probably never play it again," because "modern gear is too expensive to get covered in fake sewage."

Upon its digital re-release in 2012, Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar was universally panned by metal critics. AngryMetalGuy gave it a 0.5/10, writing: "This isn't music. It's an audio prank. The production sounds like a dying fax machine."

However, as Nekrogoblikon grew more popular and their sound became cleaner (think Welcome to Bonkers’ "Dressed as Goblins"), a revisionist appreciation for "Stenchrar" emerged. It is now viewed as "anti-art" or a "deconstruction of metal production standards."

In 2023, the song was listed by MetalSucks as #7 on their list of "Songs That Should Never Be Remastered." The article argued: "To remaster Stenchrar would be to kill it. The bad recording is the song. It is a captured moment of a band making exactly the noise they wanted to make, consequences be damned."

Collectors now pay handsomely for the original 2009 CD-R version of the Stench EP, which lists "Stenchrar" with a different, unprintable subtitle. The song structure is deceptively simple: Verse, Wall

Because the mix is so muddy, fans have spent years debating the lyrics to Nekrogoblikon Stenchrar. Using spectral analysis and live bootlegs from 2010 (where the band played it exclusively), a rough translation has emerged.

The song appears to be a manifesto of goblin survivalism:

"From the midden heap we rise / Stenchrar for the flies / No king, no crown, just the brown / Suck the marrow, burn the plow."

The chorus is simply the word "Stenchrar" growled eight times, followed by a wet, spitting sound. Linguistically, it is believed "Rar" is Old Goblin for "Ritual" or "Harvest." Thus, "Stenchrar" translates to "The Ritual of Filth."

Lyrically, the song rejects the high-fantasy tropes of elves and dwarves. It celebrates decay, composting, and the beauty of being overlooked. It is the sound of a band actively rejecting the polished production that would later define them.