Divine Empire - Method of Execution (2005)

As much as I might mourn the plebeian and boring cover art of a hostage being blindfolded and gunned through the mouth, I have to admit that Divine Empire have improved upon the brute and urban aesthetics of their prior effort Nostradamus here. I really don't see why bands in this genre would abandon their imaginative and frightening imagery for such mediocrity (take a look at Doomed to Inherit or Redemption and then compare), but in this case the plain and violent portrayal is pretty well suited to the lyrical themes coursing through the album. Method of Execution is just as street tough and thuggish as its predecessor, an urban Morbid Angel, but Divine Empire have done well to improve the songwriting and offer a level of variation yet unheard from their minds.

As far as its production, Method of Execution is close to Nostradamus. Thick and knotted, meat hammer pummeling grooves are splices with faster paced, technical aggression. But there is a clear swerve towards both a more thrashing territory in several of the central riffs, and also a more overt use of atmospheric techniques that make the album feel very well rounded. There are 16 tracks here, a substantial amount when just 10 or 12 might have sufficed, and thus a few cannot match the delivery of the best, but in all there are plenty of hooks to keep one on board. I was shocked by how great the intro to "Vowed Revenge" was, and then the great textures of the riffs and the surprise of the orchestral swells in the background, not to mention the bass lines coursing through the forceful chugging, but not all of the songs live up to this promise. "Terror Zone", "Dungeon Mask" and "The Mauler" all kick some ass under this versatile context, and a few happy mediums between Morbid Angel and Pestilence ("Impervious Deception" and "Sanctionized Homicide", but the rest fall slightly behind.

Still, Blachowicz and Soares have clearly benefited from having a stable lineup two records in a row (drummer Timlin remained on board), and no matter what the song here, they seem to find some way to convey tension and intrigue through the dense mix, busy battering and outbreaks of beefy death/thrash. The instrumentals are fairly interesting, though not necessary, like the closer "Reduced to Ashes" and its mix of bluesy rock and voluptuous chugging. In the end, I think I'd have to qualify Method of Execution as Divine Empire's finest hour. It might not have the same punishing precision as the debut Redemption, but it provides a curious alternative to Hate Eternal or Morbid Angel from a more brutish, street tough perspective, battling not the Elder Gods and occult endgame scenarios, but the political and social atrocities of its day. Not nearly a masterpiece, yet a pretty promising start for the trio as they moved to Century Media records, so I'm wondering where the followup is!? I'm certainly ready to listen.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (present state of war)

http://metalasylum.com/divine/

Divine Empire - Nostradamus (2003)

Metal music has long been like a nursery school child's playroom clay, constantly pounded away at until all of the characteristics become dulled and indistinguishable from that of the next tyke. As sad as it is to hear, this is most often the case within the more extreme ends of the genre, namely death and black metal, and Divine Empire is yet another (unwitting) culprit of the form. Their first two albums were not half-bad, possessing at least a few moments of compensation for the time spent examining their contents, but the buck stopped upon the third full-length Nostradamus, an album I feel hard pressed to distinguish from several of its peers. If you told me this was a new Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal or even Malevolent Creation CD, I would be forced to agree with you until seeing contrary evidence.

It's got the same mix of blasted hostility and percussive grooving that the last did, but also too often reminds me of something Morbid Angel might have written on Domination, Gateways to Annihilation or Formulas Fatal to the Flesh. The downtuned guitars are so overt here that they often remind me of Korn or Mudvayne when they hit a breakdown, even if the chugging structures are not quite the same. Some of the songs, like "They Rise" are so chocked with vapid and disinterested chugging rhythms that I find them almost torture to sit through, leaving the album to survive on its faster, octave fueled rhythms akin to Hate Eternal's Conquering the Throne. Divine Empire was on its third drummer in three albums here, with Duane Timlin (of numerous other acts) stepping in to replace Alex Marquez, who apparently had some fallout with Jason Blachowicz resulting in the ode "Cuidate del Traidor", with some less than flattering, and frankly sucky lyrics. In fact, all of the lyrics on Nostradamus are pretty weak, another area in which the Floridians fail to really stand out...

So, with bass too loud, dearth of staying power in almost every track on the album, and lyrics that are little more than poop, is there any reason to be excited over this album? Certainly not the dull ass cover art. In truth, there are a handful of tracks which pummel enough of a solid death/thrashing that you won't yawn too much: "Season of Extinction", "Basher" and "Cuidate del Traidor", but even these I wouldn't mistake as the kind I'd want to experience repeatedly. I kept hanging on, knuckles white for that one explosion to justify this album's existence, and it never arrived. Nostradamus suffers from that 'me too' syndrome which is especially noxious within the folds of 21st century death metal: not enough brutality to outdistance its contemporaries, not enough songwriting ability to muster even cult classic status. Doesn't suck. Doesn't succeed. There is simply nothing to see here, and it's time to move along.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

http://metalasylum.com/divine/

Divine Empire - Doomed to Inherit (2000)

Divine Empire was only able to retain the services of Derek Roddy for a single album before he was off to greener pastures, presumably those made of money, but were quick to find an adequate successor in Alex Marquez, also of the Malevolent Creation family, having by this time already performed with Resurrection and Solstice. Doomed to Inherit was the second of three albums the band recorded for Olympic Records, and the band had developed into somewhat of a flagship for that roster, conjuring more buzz than any other new arrival to Florida death metal outside of Erik Rutan's Hate Eternal. I'm not sure they necessarily deserved such a treatment, but Redemption was solid it forgettable, and the groovier sophomore inches past it in terms of material.

Yes, I said groove, and a good portion of this recording is spent in simple, mid-paced riffing which involves a lot of chugging force far well below the competence level of the band members. Yet, when balanced off against the faster paced death/thrash rhythms, blast explosions and streams of melodic dissonance, it creates a successful degree of variation which strangely enough, seems original to Divine Empire (at least off the top of my head). Sometimes, this goes a bit too far, like the bluesy wailing over the bounce and chug of "Birth of Legends", and there are some vapid, uninspiring tracks like the peppy thrasher "Murder Suicide", but Doomed to Inherit also has some rather strong fare that ranks among the best in the band's career. Once again, they put the strongest song up front. Here, that means "War Front", a scathing brute with thick, plunking bass and brutal, curving guitar lines cast in flange above Marquez' hammering. Blachowicz hurls out the same blunt vocals as he did with Malevolent Creation, but the song is rather exciting.

Beyond that, further quality lies in the cyclic slaughter of "Repulsive" and the clinical canter of "Self Inflicted", or the rousing finale "The Culprit" which is similar in structure to "War Front". The ratio of wins to duds is about 6 to 4, but a few of those duds are at least acceptable. The comparisons to Malevolent Creation are obvious, perhaps the Stillborn and Eternal eras, and on the whole it's as good as the latter. I don't often feel any urge to listen to this album, or really any Divine Empire album, but this isn't a bad way to kill 30 minutes, even if the album isn't so technically aggressive as Redemption was. Assuming you don't mind some rather tepid, lazy grooves and chugs scattered about the more inspiring material. Fun fact: this is also the second and final Divine Empire album with a cover image that isn't awful.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (bred to act, not to think)

http://metalasylum.com/divine/

Divine Empire - Redemption (1998)

Divine Empire was formed as a splinter project of Malevolent Creation, by three of that band's 90s acquisitions that inevitably grew apart from Phil Fasciana's vision. Jason Blachowicz, John Paul Soars and percussion god Derek Roddy had cut their teeth together on the 1997 album In Cold Blood, and decided that their cooperative jamming cohesion should spin off unto its own entity. Now, from a sheer stylistic perspective, there is not a lot of difference between this album and a number of Malevolent Creation works like The Ten Commandments, Redemption, and Eternal, but the sound is even closer to the infamous Deicide, to the point that they're almost indistinguishable. Roddy's strength is reminiscent of Asheim, and the band even goes so far as to incorporate the mixed snarl and guttural vocals, though rarely in tandem...

Granted, Redemption is better produced than any of the four Deicide full lengths before it, and there are minute variations in how Soars approaches his riffing than the Hoffmans, but it's a bit difficult to imagine that the interest this band buzzed up was not directly related to such a stark similarity (and the association with Malevolent Creation). Nonetheless, Divine Empire were able to launch themselves onto a number of successful tours at the turn of the century, and if anything, Redemption makes apparent that the hungry trio had many of the necessary tools to make a name for themselves in an already over saturated genre. The debut starts off with its strongest individual track, "Hidden Hatred", noted for the writhing cysts of speed wrought below the verse, which hint at appreciable malice. Then again, I could live without the hyper grooving mosh sequence, but its brief enough before the band surges once again into a taut velocity.

After this, the album is somewhat of a mixed bag, suffering the same setbacks as a Serpents of the Light, In Cold Blood, or Stillborn: dull and predictable patterns. Here, such are given some strength through the presence of the living tempest Roddy, the sharp and snagging explosions of lead guitar, and the professional punctuality of the studio delivery. But I will be damned if I can remember anything more than 2-3 riffs off the album: the aforementioned in "Hidden Hatred", the brute thrash sequence embedded in "Criminal Instinct", and the Pestilence-inspired intro to closer "Pray for Deliverance". The remainder of the tunes, despite the obvious competence in their application, seem rather effortless in their composition, more of muscle than creativity. If you're completely in heat for the sounds of Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Diabolic, Malevolent Creation, Naphobia and so forth, then you'd hardly find this debut offensive, but for my ears, its too long on punishment, not short on shrift. Pedestrian this isn't, but to be honest, the cover is a lot more evil than the majority of the music.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (feel the force around you)

http://metalasylum.com/divine/