the Class of 92 - Deicide: "Legion"

 

When this came out Deicide was one of my favorite metal bands, but I felt this was too stripped down and streamlined in terms of the vocals, which I liked the more layered approach of the first album, but how has it held up over the year. They come out with a wrath aggression. Death metal works off its hyper aggression Deicide's sole focus was attacking Christianity which is a fair enough target if not low hanging fruit. Normally I would say with extreme metal, after the first song hits you with it's sheer heaviness the next question is ...Ok but can you write a song. Their first album answered this with a yes. The question now ,  was are they really feeling this or just dialing it in.  "Dead But Dreaming" is a tight motherfucking machine that bulldozes you. Huge props to the mix as everything sits where it feels like it is just rolling over you in terms of where the guitars sit in relation to the drums, and the bass is audible to help with this.  

By the time I get to "Repent to Die" , I begin to wonder if Deicide ruined death metal for because, really when you hear the dense blitz of riffs they throw at you, pretty much all the tricks you heard death metal bands trying to pull from 93 on they already touched on here. His growl is less demonic and more enunciated on this album which might be what I did not like as much as a teenager but can now appreciate.  The only difference in my tastes now is I normally require music that is more dynamic than this , but the riffs on this album a pretty bad ass, and the key is how tight it is. There is a uniformity beginning to creep over the sound and I have listened to this album too many times back in the day to know that nothing is going to change in that regard. 

"Behead the Prophet" has some effective punches, and their overall sound is dialed in here, the vocal phrashing is pretty much what makes this song work. He spits out his lyrics in an even faster bark on "Holy Deception" . These days I am not into death metal that is this ripping fast, because I want to hear the nuances of song writing, and most bands do not make the kinds of dynamic shifts that Deicide does on "In Hell I Burn". There are no plans to slow down on "Revocate the Agitator". It somehow all works, in part thanks to the purposeful snarl of the vocals.  This death metal masterpiece gets a 10, there are not many albums like this style of death metal I like but this is one of them .