DEICIDE: Banished By Sin (DEATH METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

A word of advice to those seeking to combat aging: play metal, it preserves! With a 35-year career behind them, Deicide is the perfect illustration of this, veterans and lords of the US death metal chapel whose unholy ferocity seems undiminished, even if their blasphemies are becoming rarer.

The Deicide of today (and at least since 2006's “The Stench Of Redemption”) remains a paradox. Unlike their diabolical beginnings, their music sounds far more melodic than it did in the days of “Legion” (1992) or “Once Upon The Cross” (1995) but they still emanate a sulphurous image of brutality. And “Banished By Sin” is no exception.

Glen Benton still growls with his voice from the underworld, the indestructible Steve Asheim hammers his drums while the tempo maintains a belligerent aggression throughout these barely forty (short) minutes. In short, it's pure death metal with a hard edge.

However, the eruptive interventions of newcomer Taylor Nordberg inject a healthy dose of melody into the mix, softening the aggressive tone. The mood is dark ('Sever The Tongue'), the Thrash roots are more apparent than ever ('Faithless'), the solos are all over the place ('Doomed To Die'), but we're almost surprised to find ourselves tapping our feet ('From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall').

Spitting out twelve protrusions whose hearth burns with an infernal fire, the machine spins at full speed without ever slowing down or slackening, the work of musicians who have mastered the genre with their bloody fingertips and whose evil vitality never betrays their venerable age. Better still, with their razor-sharp, relentless violence, Benton and his band send many younger bands back to school.

Far from being ready for retirement, Deicide's “Banished By Sin” is a formidable album, and undoubtedly one of their most accomplished, brutal yet stirring, bestial yet full of feeling. - Official website

DEICIDE

BANISHED BY SIN

REIGNING PHOENIX MUSIC

DEATH METAL