Deicide are back with more Satanic death metal and this much evil requires two reviews of Banished by Sin.
Deicide
Skeletal Remains – Fragments of the Ageless Review
“In the realm of reliable old school death metal, Skeletal Remains looms large. Over their decade-plus existence, they’ve provided quality, high-energy brutality with strong similarities to classic Morbid Angel and pre-prog/pre-AI fetish Pestilence. Albums like Condemned to Misery and The Entombment of Chaos brought the bat and the boots to the beatdown and gave fans everything they could want. They’re masters of the basic death metal experience and don’t dabble too much with their sound from album to album.” Morbid bones.
The Glorious Dead – Cemetery Paths Review
“The mysteries of old school death metal are as arcane and unknowable as the most opaque of graduate school philosophy textbooks. The genre ingredients are so rudimentary, yet they can be bent, twisted, and deformed into a seemingly endless tide of horrific abominations. Back in 2020 Michigan’s The Glorious Dead tested their formulas fatal to the flesh on debut Into Lifeless Shrines, taking the basic OSDM blueprint and sprinkling in light prog and blackened elements.” Glory or bury?
Coffin Mulch – Spectral Intercession Review
“How can you go wrong with a band named Coffin Mulch? While I’ve used these introductory paragraphs time and time again to restate my love for OSDM, it doesn’t hurt that this band’s morbid moniker really tickles my fancy. While “Coffin” isn’t a particularly inventive inclusion, “mulch” adds an entirely new, evocative flavor to this putrescent pile. Is the mulch intended, perhaps, to entice the seeping coffin below to sprout zombified greenery? Or, better yet, is the mulch itself made from that nitrogen-rich churn composed of damp soil and viscous coffin offal? The band themselves don’t offer an explanation, and that’s just fine.” Savage gardening.
Faithxtractor – Contempt for a Failed Dimension Review
“Death metal was my first love. It began with a steamy night with Morbid Angel’s Domination during my freshman year of high school. Lust blossomed into torrid love, as I violently consumed everything the first decade of death metal had to offer. In recent years, something changed. The fire of my passion flickered as I watched the wrinkles form on old-school death metal’s face.” Death and rebirth of the fanboy.
Castrator – Defiled in Oblivion Review
“It’s been a slow rollout for the sharp knives behind New York-based death metal act Castrator. The rare all-female death crew, they’ve been lurking since 2014, honing their cutting techniques. 2022 finally sees them drop a full-length platter of testicularly challenging material, and Defiled in Oblivion certainly demonstrates the chops you look for in a fledgling death upstart. Trafficking in the OSDM style of Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel, Castrator aren’t looking to rewrite the book of death or take things to strange new places. Instead, they’re content to play with establish sounds and put their own grisly stamp on well-traveled styles.” Throw a pair.
Thorn – Yawning Depths Review
“Thorn, a one-man act from Arizona, used to dwell in the chunky sloth of death/doom with debut Crawling Worship, focusing heartily on concrete-thick slogs and hell-scraping gutturals. Amping the tempo while letting old habits die hard, sophomore effort Yawning Depths offers a beatdown not unlike sole member Brennen Westermeyer’s other brutal deathgrind project Fluids. Borrowing influences from post-metal and doom, it’s a shape-shifting experience that is as relentless as it is meditative.” Sleepy bulldozers.
Diabolizer – Khalkedonian Death Review
“Khalkedonian Death may be Diabolizer’s official full-length debut, but the Turkish band brings a strong death metal pedigree to the starting gate. Featuring members of Hyperdontia, Burial Invocation, and Engulfed, Diabolizer play a brutal, technical, yet groove-filled style of death metal formed from the blasphemous union of diabolical influences like Deicide, Nile, and Cannibal Corpse.” Death devil in the details.
Akiavel – Væ Victis Review
If you’re about my age, you probably remember being a teenager and being rather surprised by Arch Enemy’s “Nemesis” video. For those unfamiliar, a speedy melo-death riff kicks the song off and we see a girl dressed like a Hot Topic version of Britney Spears in the “Oops, I Did it Again” video. She lets out a scream, and everyone watching goes “whoa, I can’t believe a girl can make those sounds!” The novelty wore off quickly despite my efforts to like the band because I liked Michael Amott’s work in Carcass. The Angela Gossow version Arch Enemy was inoffensively boring, and the band has since deteriorated into being offensively boring in the current Alissa White-Gluz iteration. The takeaway here is that Arch Enemy at their most popular is bland and uninspiring, and I’m lost as to who would take musical inspiration from that sound. Enter French death metal band Akiavel.” Archetypes.
Insect Inside – The First Shining of New Genus Review
“Slam is a style I’ve never understood. Often layered with gory shock novelty and the variety of deathcore, bands like Abominable Putridity and Epicardiectomy have only gotten a head-scratch from me with endless “djunz” and br00tal “eeeeees”. Insect Inside is a young Russian trio from Zlatoust, a demo and single released since their 2017 inception. Debut LP The First Shining of New Genus creates the soundtrack of being eaten alive by the swarm in its beatdown of groovy, thick riffs, and hell-scraping gutturals.” Slam beetles.
