Kind of an interesting one to be reviewing following the controversy surrounding this album’s alleged AI artwork. A separate issue to the music perhaps but not a great start. A band like Deicide absolutely can and should support artists to create something bespoke and decent, a point may be deducted from the score for this. Anyway I’ll assume if you’re reading this you’re a Metalhead so unless you live under a rock there’s this band from Florida called Deicide. They’re basically one of the biggest bands in Death Metal with many quality and classic albums like their self-titled debut and Once Upon The Cross from their classic era to To Hell With God and In The Minds Of Evil in their more recent years. Now we usher in their monumental thirteenth full length Banished By Sin from Reigning Phoenix Music (not a label I’m really familiar with), as mentioned the album has already caused quite a stir with its art, but how is the actual music?
From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall comes in full of Death Metal riffage and the signature tones of Death Metal icon Glen Benton. It also combines some perfect hook heavy anthemic lyrical action, which is something that has always massively appealed to me in OSDM and Deicide. There is absolutely a certain production polish that pervades in later albums from older bands, particularly when it comes to Death and Thrash Metal and honestly this sort of crisp quality is something I really like. It kind of separates the old style from the new and shows a moving with the times, having poor production for the sake of it is sometimes a little try-hard I think. Doomed To Die keeps the modern sounding Deicide up and is yet another solid song, not quite as brilliant as the opener but nonetheless memorable. Sever The Tongue luckily brings bigger, better riffs and drum patterns, proving to generally be more interesting whilst retaining that catchy element. Thankfully keeping up the decent guitar work Faithless injects elements of Thrash making for absolute circle pit fodder. Falling a little flatter is sadly Bury The Cross… With Your Christ, I say sadly because it’s a banging track title and would make for some quality belt out singing in a live experience, that said it still isn’t a bad song musically speaking. Next up is an ‘Ok boomer’ moment with Woke From God, I fully respect and agree with the anti-religious elements of Deicide, in fact it’s one of the things that makes them so interesting for me, but using the term ‘woke’ feels a little ‘old man yells at cloud’ (Simpsons reference right there). Seriously though I think that the term woke is a bit lazy if nothing else. I get the sentiment used within this track but personally I think it’s basically stupid terminology, it’s also not a particularly great song, save for some of the riffs.
Ritual Defiled is once again a solid song musically but isn’t as catchy as I would like in the vocal department. It therefore makes this album start to fall into the classic old band, new album formula of a handful of bangers and a fair bit of filler. I have to say that the real stars of this album are guitarists Kevin Quirion and Taylor Nordberg. They really keep the flame alive throughout and honestly make the less appealing songs shine a bit brighter with their high quality, varied Metal riffs. Proving this point yet further is Failures Of Your Dying Lord and once again with the album’s title track. That said Banished By Sin does show a bit more impact, the kind of song I could see being slid into a set-list for the album’s tour at least. By the time A Trinity Of None rolls in I wouldn’t say I’ve had enough because musically the album is still leaps and bounds better than a lot of churned out drivel I’ve heard from the Death Metal scene, but it’s not exceptional by Deicide standards. Good yes, brilliant, no, save for the odd track of course. There really isn’t much more for me to comment on regarding singular songs I Am I… Curse Of Death has good riffs, so does The Light Defeated, no frills just pure Death Metal.
AI artwork, using the term woke, are Deicide out of touch? Maybe a little, but Glen Benton has always been one for controversy so it’s not exactly out of the bands remit. I actually did enjoy Banished By Sin quite a bit despite its often lacking hook heavy vocal portions. In terms of riffs it’s maybe one of the strongest later Deicide albums and I can say for sure it has made me very excited for their performance at Bloodstock later this year. Honestly I’m often just happy bands like this are still pumping out material. It’s not the place to start with Deicide (go for the early stuff) but it’s nice for the existing fans, and to repeat, maybe next time hire an artist for your artwork Deicide.
(7/10 George Caley)
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