I wonder what 16 year old me would think about this record. He loved Deicide , I'm betting some of the grooves would have made him head bangingly happy, he would have preferred the layered vocals of the first album and the harder hitting hooks of Once Upon the Cross as this is a much more straight forward effort than either of those albums.
The title track comes in and grabs your attention like any heavy act will, the sheer intensity holds you then it's wait and see when the novelty of volume and power wears off, if they can write songs that keep you engaged. The chorus to this song is almost sung like newer Morbid Angel. It seems like a new trick for them but I gave up on the band after Once Upon the Cross, so I couldn't tell you other wise. In fact isn't Glen Benton supposed to have already suicide sacrificed him self by now?
"Thous Begone " starts the descent into the jackhammer pummeling that is broken up by some cool gallops and solos , but pretty much gull speed ahead just like it was 1988. They have some signature punches toward the end, that remind me more of Once Upon the Cross era, than anything previous. Make no mistake about about it they are a refined and relentless death metal machine, but it paints all with a singular aggression as the only emotion accounted for.
"Godkill" does ring back the shadows of Legion to my memory banks, but is no where as catchy, and this could just as easily be Broken Hope or any other straight ahead death metal band from the 90's. The chug a lug into "Beyond Salvation" is pretty rocking, and the syncopation of Benton's vocals do remind me of their glory days, but once it gets to the blur of what could be the chorus it all begins to sound the same.
"Misery of One" the drums are more machine fired than actually played. The song steam rolls over it's self it has so much momentum, almost to the point of its strength and weakness are one and the same. The blastiness of "Between the Flesh and the Void" overtakes it's self. The verse after the chorus, is pretty cool, but the cool riffs alone don't make a song has to apply to Deicide as well, I think there was more passion in his vocal delivery on the first three album so they made up for the one dimensional aggression. The solos on this album are a lot more mature and polished for sure.
There are the more thrashy moments of songs like "Even the Gods Can Bleed" where the songs benefit from groove to the gallop. The lyrics which are as anti-Jehovah as ever, have room to jab at you and get their infernal message across. The thing is while I am no more Jehovah friendly than I was as a teenager, the blatant nature of the lyrics seems juvenile as picking on something as pitiful as Christianity is like kicking a cripple in this day and age.
"Trample the Cross" comes on so fast and furious that it tramples over itself, only letting the guitar melody survive atop it before going into a juggernaut riff that is of the same proportion as most of the riff on this album so its size is relative. This album is air tight on the production end and the mix is very polished so no corners were cut in the execution of this.
All the songs get right to the point and go for the throat, clocking in around three minutes each. "Fallen to Silence" doesn't find groove or hints of melody until the final minute. The solo in this one stands out in terms of its composition. "Kill the Light of Christ" is the only song where it sounds as if Benton is aware metal as moved onto darker things like black metal. "End the Wrath of God' the drumming starts off not a steamrolling but gets there before the chorus.
I'll give the album a 6, as it's too straight forward for my adult taste buds these days and not on the level with the first three but a solid effort, if you like straight ahead old school death metal, that these guys are the god fathers of then around it up another point.
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