Deicide - The Stench of Redemption [Earache - 2006]This is pretty breathtaking brutal stuff, raging with aggressive god hating anger, and some surprisingly tuneful and atmospheric guitar work. For a band that have been going near on twenty years, and most had written off along time ago, this seems such an invigorated take on their sound and death metal genre as a whole. It might have something to do with the dispatch of the Holfman brothers, and replace of them with double guitar tortures Jack Owen( Ex Cannibal Corpse) and Ralph Santolla(ex Iced earth/ Death), they seem to weaved in some wonderful fist in the face and stomach intensity back into the band. But also the riffs have a really memorable quality and often crawling virtuoso melodic guitar work. Hell the guitar solos are all over the place, cut great sways of dramatic guitar harmonics through out, tipped with spiteful displeasure. There’s even clear guitar elements on the last track The lords Sedition, which really add to the texture and the depth of the sound, strengthen the heavy parts when they kick in and rip your face off with speeding riffs . One of my favourite tracks has to the slower paced Desecration- which it’s rich with evil guitar harmonics. Giving a wonderfully feeling of ageing, all consuming evil. The variation of pace and sound makes it a more satisfying and enjoyable hellish ride of an album, but they never forgetting the need for brutal speeding riff chaos. I can safely say I’ve not enjoyed a Deicide album this much since Legion or for that matter any other death metal albums, in a long time. Deicide are a recharged death metal beast, which will please metal fans old and new with its nod to the past, but also stanch with its bloody persistence ,to breath fresh demonic air into the scene.
Roger Batty
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