Deicide – Banished by Sin
Release Date: 26th April 2024
Label: Reigning Phoenix Music
Order/Stream
Genre: Death Metal
FFO: Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under, Morbid Angel.
Review By: Jeff Finch
Glen Benton and the boys are back: after a six-year hiatus from releasing music, last seen in 2018 with the standard Deicide fare Overtures of Blasphemy, one of the best-selling death metal bands of all time has graced us with their presence once again. If you’re familiar with Deicide and what they’re about, no introduction is needed. If you’re not familiar, well…go listen, we’ll wait. Better? Good. Because when a Deicide album drops, that means a few things: riffs, speed, and anger, what they’ve been serving up for over thirty years. In dropping this new one, Banished by Sin, long time fans will be more than satiated and new fans, even if they choose this record to start, will undoubtedly understand why this band is one of the most popular in the genre.
Much like their counterparts Cannibal Corpse, when a Deicide album drops, there are very rarely going to be any songs or segments that shock, surprise, or otherwise catch a listener off guard. Pummeling riffs, thrashy and chuggy, thudding rumbling bass, courtesy of the legend himself, and a percussive unit that bludgeons the drums into submission, between powerful fills, double bass assault, and an unending reserve of energy, Deicide brings the patented ‘meat and potatoes’ death metal to the table. Album opener From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall takes its time to bring us into the mix, the triplet riffs and the pounding drums gathering up intensity, whammy bars sounding the alarms in the background as Glen roars into the mix, a demon summoned from the depths, as the band breaks into all out thrash, Benton’s low growls as savage as over, layered shrieks added to the fold for extra menace, as we segue into the chorus; bitter, angry, unrelenting, a full on chastising from the man himself. The song moves at an absolute breakneck pace right into the solo, breaking into the mix with enough force to push the pummeling riffs briefly to the back, before giving way with one last grasp of the whammy bar, Benton taking over the reins once more.
Early single Sever the Tongue brings patented Glen Benton fury, the opening damn near a mid-tempo breakdown before the track even begins, quickly transitioning into those tremolo riffs, Benton’s rumbling, thudding bass keeping rhythm as the man eviscerates religion, god, and their followers in the most blistering of ways as he spews with unrepentant venom:
Fuck your religion
Sever the tongue
Source of division
The cross of the righteous one
How dare you pray for me
Unwanted
Don’t need your sympathy
Unneeded
The man is not trying to hide his utter disdain for religion, and anyone taken aback by this doesn’t know Deicide. The vitriolic lyricism, to this point a proprietary Benton inclusion, is buffered by the unrelenting pace of the track, rarely breaking from double bass drums, the matching intensity of the riffs and the bass, the solo providing a brief respite and a glimpse into the ferocious technicality the band still brings to the table.
Songs like Woke from God, barely breaking the three-minute mark, waste little time in getting started, chaotic drum fills battling fierce riffs, reminiscent of 80s thrash, but with more heft, and a small solo thrown into the sonic maelstrom, all before Benton has even opened his mouth. But when he does, the layered growls and screams blend perfectly with the wall of sound drubbing its listeners, an all out assault including blast beats, a quick tempo shift into a blistering solo full of whammy effects and frenetic fretwork, transitioning back into the lower tuned main tremolo riff moving forth with the pace and intensity of a Peregrine Falcon.
Keeping with this theme, album closer The Light Defeated immediately jumps into the fury with blast beats, guitars furiously chugged and strummed, approaching black metal intensity. The little shifts in the tempo early on keep the riffs and the melody from getting stale, leading into a larger shift where the entire band slows down but does not relent, segueing into a low, downtuned, chugged riff complementing Glen’s bass, the drums taking a momentary backseat. Just past the halfway mark, a shredding solo pops through the speakers before slowly fading to black as blistering tapping takes over, transitioning into more shredding, the fretwork just jaw-droppingly technical, one final time shifting into the main riff to close the track out, that last push not giving the listener any time to absorb what they’ve heard before the album ends.
Now, obviously, what’s been described thus far just sounds like excellent death metal, no muss no fuss, just an intense ferocity that will please any fan of the genre. And that’s because that’s what it is: Deicide is not going into an album trying to wow, to woo, to garner new fans, or even trying to slow down a bit as Glen is well into his 50s by now. No, the band is going to do what they do best: cave your face in with nasty metal. It’s an absolute banger of a death metal record, furious in every capacity, a hearty dish of meat and potatoes metal: but let’s be clear here, this isn’t just meat and potatoes, it’s more like a well seasoned New York Strip with a loaded baked potato. For just straight death metal, from the production to the musical performances to the man himself still sounding just as savage as he did over thirty years ago, this thing just plain hits.
(4 / 5)
