Saxon - Call to Arms (2011)

If you had told me 20 years ago that Saxon would still be alive and well in the 21st century, releasing viable and even extraordinary albums, I doubt I would have believed you. Apart from Motörhead, they are perhaps the one long-term NWOBHM act who not only persist, but actively challenge themselves and come out fighting with records arguably as strong as their classics. Whilst Iron Maiden and Judas Priest are pushing up daisies, sating their audiences on brand names alone and diminishing songwriting capacity, Biff Byford and his troops have forged on with great records like Unleash the Beast, The Inner Sanctum, Lionheart and Into the Labyrinth.

Granted, some purists who fancy only the most blue-collar roots of the band on classics like "Wheels of Steel" or "Power and the Glory" might feel turned off at the modern studio climate and surges of power metal aggression the band espouse in recent years, but a little variation does nothing to dull the band's inspirational, incessant devotion to quality. Call to Arms, their 19th full-length, delivers on all fronts, a blend of classic NWOBHM/hard rock tracks and faster paced material for the younger audience. "Hammer of the Gods", "Afterburner" and "Surviving the Odds" all offer the savage nigh-on speed metal that dwells upon their threshold of aggression, replete with soaring choruses, Byford stretching his elder lungs to the max.

Meanwhile, those interested in the band's 80s, power ballad-to-balls fare will be thrilled with "Mists of Avalon" and "No Rest for the Wicked" which hearken back to Rock the Nations, Destiny and other examples of their work in the genre's Golden decade; and if it's the more 'epic' Saxon you seek (circa Metalhead, Into the Labyrinth, Killing Ground) then you've got "When Doomsday Comes". There are few if any missteps. "Ballad of the Working Man" has a decent swagger and melody line to it, but otherwise moves to the rear of the pack; while the big rock of "Back in 79", in which the band recruited a pile of fans to provide the later backing chorus, is not that great a tune outside of its cute gimmick...

The production sounds superb as it has for the past seven records, and the streak of memorable songwriting continues, even if the album isn't wholly consistent. Saxon proudly joins the ranks of Accept and Anvil in bringing the inspiration to yet another decade, this one ridden with old school heavy metal wannabes that are being proven redundant by the originators! Call to Arms is not the monolith of quality that Unleash the Beast and The Inner Sanctum both proved to be, but it thrusts a wrench to the jawbone of irrelevancy, and time itself is going to have to work a lot harder to steer these old dogs off the scent.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

http://www.saxon747.com/

Diabolic - Infinity Through Purification (2003)

A couple years after the debacle that would have Diabolic releasing two albums within weeks of one another (the strong sophomore Subterraneal Magnitude and the monotonous blast fest Vengeance Ascending), things appeared to be in order once again. Thus, their second album through Olympic, Infinity Through Purification feels a little less rushed in retrospect, a bit more balanced. Really though, after Vengeance Ascending, just about any degree of variation would have served, and though this is not Diabolic's best CD, it certainly cannot be accused of the same exhausted momentum of its direct predecessor. Much closer to Subterraneal in scope, with a lot of huge, swerving grooves interspersed by maniacal bursts of Morbid Angel worship, Infinity lies between them in overall quality.

Some of the guitar work here, for example, is stunning, like the tearing weave of melodies that initializes "From the Astral Plane...Entwined with Infinity", or the transcendent, atmospheric leads in "Spiritual Transition". But these are leveled off with rampant blast work and vapid streams of chords that establish little more than a comparative level of brutality to their peers Malevolent Creation, Hate Eternal and of course Morbid Angel. You'll have the distinct impression that you've had your head torn off and then punted down the nearest street, but it often becomes difficult to remember just who by? A few of the tracks like "Exsanguinated Life" or "Satanic Barbarism" almost trip over themselves in their forceful clamor, but leave behind very little memorable riffing of note, and because of this, the leads often stand forth far more than they justly should, because they provide the few moments of inarguable intrigue.

As usual the drums (performed here by Gaël Barthelemy, who would briefly replace Aantar Coates) are a tireless engine of hostility, but the velocity at which a percentage of the rhythms are performed leaves little room for breathing. If a double bass/blast beat storm is what you're looking for, then Infinity Through Purification would likely appease you, but too little of the writing transcends that particular threshold. The production is clean and reactive to the intense traffic of the drums and guitars. The vocals just kind of blather along like a mix of Steve Tucker and Glen Benton's lows, never really establishing distinction through malevolent tone or lyrical patterns. Dynamically, this isn't suffering necessarily from the same one track mind as the prior album, but neither is it exceedingly well structured or memorable. A few madness spun leads and guitar sequences outstanding, the rest degraded to the same mindless raving that renders much of the work of Divine Empire or Malevolent Creation ineffective.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (the attack proceeds)

http://www.myspace.com/diabolic666

Monstrosity - Live Extreme Brazilian: Tour 2002 (2003)

It seems somewhat suspect that Monstrosity would release a live album so soon after their Enslaving the Masses compilation (2001). Was there really a huge demand for such material? Disc 2 of that collection left something to be desired (rather unfairly mixed), but it at least gave a general impression of how the band were experienced on stage. Having seen them, I can attest that they're decent, thus a better sounding live offering might not be unwelcome, but that, my friends, is not Live Extreme Brazilian Tour 2002, not by a long shot. This was released through a small label known as Mutilation, and features a pretty piss poor recording of a handful of Monstrosity tracks that the band were performing in South America.

Seriously, one has to strain to attain any subtleties in the performance. Lee Harrison's drums are strong enough, or at least, mechanical sounding and precise, but the guitar chugging, and that's all you will hear: the chugging, is quite weak. I've heard jam room recordings stronger than this, recorded to single track tape machines. The vocals sound fairly generic, and the bass exists only as a pumping subtext to the monotony of the guitars. The one guitar thing doesn't work out quite so well when the rhythm has to drop for the leads (they've often had two though). Now, it's quite likely that this was in fact a great, exciting set being performed, but that the capture simply wasn't very good. The set here is rather short, about a half hour and eight tracks, two of which are Slayer covers ("Angel of Death" and "Raining Blood", about as generic as you could get, though Monstrosity do decent renditions on principle).

As for their original offerings, you get three from the Corpsegrinder fronted albums Imperial Doom (the title track, "Final Cremation") and Millenium ("Fatal Millenium"); the rest are all from their most recent, In Dark Purity ("Destroying Divinity", "Dust to Dust", and "The Angel Venom"). Not a terrible selection for so brief a set, but nevertheless underwhelming if you were to compare it to any of the more substantial alternatives you could purchase. Perhaps if they'd placed a few separate, complete sets here across 2-3 discs, with some variation in the track lists, then it would be a better bargain, but if the sound were this mediocre in general then that would become even more of a drag. Even if Live Extreme Brazilian Tour 2002 is not an official bootleg, it should be treated as such, because that's what it sounds like, and the limited pressing of this is really no impetus to check it out unless you're the most financially liberal collectors.

Verdict: Fail [3.25/10]

http://www.monstrosity.us/

Monstrosity - Rise to Power (2003)

Rise to Power is the fourth Monstrosity album overall, the second and last with Jason Avery filling the vocal position, and it's also the most indistinct. Never a band on the edge of anything, they have long felt like some crossbreeding grounds for their Florida peers. Capable of the speed and precision of Morbid Angel's finer heights, the punch of a Deicide, and the carnal riffing of a Cannibal Corpse, they can turn tempos on a dime and each member contributes the necessarily level of required execution and proficiency. Whether you're in death metal for the grooves and breakdowns, or the fits of manic acceleration, this is a band with your back. Why then, with all of these things going for it, does Rise to Power fall behind their prior outings?

Well, it's pretty much your stock 'modern' death metal of the 21st century to date. Cognizant of its influences and the band's own legacy, energetic and thunderous, and without a single damned song worth remembering after the fact! If you turned down the speed dial on Hate Eternal's first few albums, and marginally weakened the riffs, it would probably sound a lot like this. In their defense, they were packing a pair of new guitar players since In Dark Purity: Tony Norman and Sam Molina, and despite this they do manage to create an aggressive, intense architecture through "The Exordium" and "Awaiting Armageddon". A few of the riffs feel mildly innovative, or putting to use more than just the band's speed and brutality, but I felt as if I were some party disinterested in gymnastics, forced to watch the acrobatic competitions at the Olympics. The guitars, as dynamic and terse as they appear, never manifest in patterns of revelation. This is fairly soulless death metal, with zero malignant undercurrent, and no amount of Lee Harrison's hammering skill or Jason Avery's monotonous, brutal drawl are able to rescue it.

It's a shame, honestly, because its fairly close to In Dark Purity in identity, but so far from the Corpsegrinder years in terms of an album you'll want to break out repeatedly. The production here is brick solid, and the instruments managed incredibly well, but there's not enough of the spastic indulgence of the modern California scene, or the strong songwriting out of Poland. In fact, Monstrosity's fourth album is just another pointer on how the mighty have fallen, how the Florida titans and their hangers-on had been diminishing in value for some time, unable to match the pinnacles of novelty and achievement that marked the late 80s and early 90s. Rise to Power is no slouch, and a few of the tunes provide 'in the moment' excitement, like "A Casket for the Soul" or "Abysmal Gods", but even these peter out into insignificance as solid riffs are backed by trackless filler, writhing grooves betrayed by vapid blast-offs. There's some variation to be had, but not much value.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (your very soul devolves)

http://www.monstrosity.us/

Morbid Angel - Heretic (2003)

The 21st century has not been the most productive for Morbid Angel, who are now at the precipice of releasing only their 2nd full-length beyond Gateways to Annihilation (at the turn of the century). Now, granted, it's not as if they truly needed anything else to secure their legacy as legends or pioneers of the death metal genre, inspiring thousands of similar acts, but there seems to be this frivolous, counter-concern within the Trey and Pete camp in recent times. They'll do a tour, play the oldies, and every now and then, when they can bring themselves to care, churn some new material out of the womb of their imaginations. They've made their mark, so why bother to make another?

It's this tinkering and attention deficit which poison Heretic from achieving higher accolades, for while the 7th studio outing has its curiosities, and even a few revelations, it lacks the consistency and desolate might of its predecessor. Gateways to Annihilation was a trying and poignant glare into emptiness through the muscle of pure force, but Heretic seems far lazier. The guitar tone is thinner and thus less potent, especially since Trey is still focusing heavily on the twisted palm mute, lumbering backbone he had been using in the compositions since Blessed Are the Sick. A few of the tunes like "Cleansed in Pestilence (Blade of Elohim)" and "Curse the Flesh" seem as if they'd be scorchers with a better guitar sound, but instead feel bulimic and limp. The drums are quite strong, par for the course through the band's history, but without a more interesting sheet of riffing overlay, they are unable to get far of their own accord.

On the other hand, Heretic is still 'interesting' when it wants to be. Some of the faster breaks found in tunes like "Stricken Arise" or "Within Thy Enemy..." are well balanced and prove the band still have their extreme chops, even if musically speaking they were no longer riding the edge of the genre's levels of technicality and proficiency. Steve Tucker is strong throughout, his vocals digging into approximate levels of pain as Gateways. A number of the instrumental segues are quite wonderful, like the ominous crushing depth of "Place of Many Deaths" or the tranquil ambiance of "Abyssous", or even the dark age drought of "Memories of the Past". Morbid Angel attempted some similar, ritualistic environments beyond the metal itself with their shaky 5th album Formulas Fatal to the Flesh, but I feel that these work far better individually (though I could have done without the inner geek channeling "Victorious March of Reign the Conqueror", inspired by the animated TV series; cool idea, mediocre execution).

Then there's the bonus disc, which is full of rough instrumental mixes of the vocal songs, and a bunch of isolated solos and snippets. I guess if you really wanted to use some of the metal tracks as background without Tucker's presence, it's useful, but I'd rather hear some cool unreleased tunes or a live set or anything. The core album contains a "Drum Check", which totally breaks up the otherworldly effect a listener might experience during a better Morbid Angel record, and this should have been consigned to the bonus disc, but it's not, and that is yet another reason the disc feels so hackneyed and half-assed. None of the metal songs here are necessarily 'bad', but they truly lack the primal and hostile power of the previous work, and I can't think of a single entry I'd offer on a Morbid Angel highlight real, aside from some of the ambient fare, which really wouldn't belong. Despite the rhythmic exploration, decent lyrics and leads, and the stylistic deviation for the off-tracks, it's just not one of their best.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10] (restraint is not an option)

http://www.morbidangel.com/

Six Feet Under - Bringer of Blood (2003)

Perhaps I've just been looking at Six Feet Under in the wrong light. Maybe this band was actually birthed as a comedy troupe, a more subversive and brutal alternative to a Tenacious D or Weird Al Yankowic. Maybe Chris Barnes and crew are laughing all the way to their next paycheck, each time they release one of these stolid and mentally handicapped emissions unto the world. A googly eyed skull stares in separate directions while its head is adorned with goathorns and other floppy things that make it look like an undead jester. The 'Play' button reveals nothing more than awkwardly conceived vocals between blunt and snarled poles. Bad death metal grooves that were frankly not fit for most of the half-assed groove and nu-metal bands in the mid to late 90s. Pedestrian lyrics that exhibit not even the most frivolous trace of effort. Welcome once more to Six Feet Under. This is all a joke, right?

Perhaps the most criminal irony about Bringer of Blood is that the mix of the album sounds so much fresher and bloodier than all of its predecessors. They were truly able to extract a gut wrenching power from the guitars this time around, and Barnes' deeper vocals are better pronounced and less like a sad gorilla that had its zoo toys taken away from it. But the songs themselves are largely more of the same, pathetic and embarrassing fare that would not take the canny musician even a brief instant to compose. For example, "Sick in the Head" is naught more than generic grooves and chugging rhythms that for some reason have not put Steve Swanson to sleep, slathered in annoying grunts and rasps and a chorus break that sounds like Barnes is channeling Mr. Ed into his gutturals! And then then next song is dubbed "Amerika the Brutal" and sounds like a mix of GWAR! and The Offspring, with 6FU vox. I am not making this up. How the hell do I persist and not turn this slop off?

You'd think it could not get any worse, but then in the very NEXT song ("My Hatred") Barnes starts grunting 'Hell yeah, hell yeah, what the fuck you gonna do' in what might be the lamest and weakest indictment of Christianity ever penned in extreme metal. A few of the middle pieces like "Murdered in the Basement" and "When Skin Turns Blue" take a turn for the better, but really they're nothing more than the same puerile post-Obituary grooving mosh anthems that this band had been releasing for years already. Ditto for "Escape from the Grave". In the end, I wish I could send a sympathy card to whoever wasted his time making such drivel sound so coiled and powerful, but I won't, since Chris Barnes produced it and even had a hand in the mix. Bringer of Blood is just another miserable toilet splash in the sad, sodden output of Six Feet Under.

Verdict: Fail [3/10] (something's rotten in the cellar)

http://www.sfu420.com/

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/

Man Daitõrgul - Norvaragell Sgă [DEMO] (2011)

Man Daitõrgul is the black metal vision of a single Spaniard, one Nagh Faëre, who performs all of the instrumentals and vocals on this demo recording. It's rather unique in that the music is written to accompany a fantastical novel by the same creator, who has gone so far as to even create his own language ('Baaldro'), to lend a bit of mythic realism to his compositions, akin to how Tolkien approached his world building. The name of the musical entity is thus read as 'Fortress of the Thousand Towers', and the demo's title, Norvaragell Sgă, translates to 'Hymn to the Northern Warriors'. Much of the lyrical concept is focused on war and glory, as the demo's belligerent cover art (dominated by a figure similar looking to the video game character Kratos) would suggest.

Naturally, I am drawn to such creativity like a moth to a flame. The added step of designing one's own tale, one's own dialect, and setting the events within the music to a landscape of what never was (unless cast in allegory) tends to conjure an immediate distinction to the work. However, as a limited released demo (a hundred copies or so were printed to a tape label), from a younger musician, there are issues to be expected, and problems do manifest in the songwriting and the underwhelming production standards which should be addressed. For one, Nagh Faëre uses a drum machine to program the ballistic battery beyond his guitars and vocals, and while I bear no inherent opposition to the practice, which makes sense when you can't find a drummer, there are certain percussive elements to the recording that need some adjustment, particular the cymbal crashes which lose their natural resonance, feeling too forced and mechanical.

Another issue is with the balance levels of the various tracks, which often feel inconsistent due to being recorded at different times, for different releases (a pair of tracks hail from a promo Nagh put together the year prior, and the rest were to be divided across several other demos). Again, this is to be expected on a demo, and it's not much of a distraction when listening through individual tracks, but it does deter the overall flow of the demo from reaching a more effective whole. As for the material itself, its traditional black metal reliant on primal repetition, a subtler subtext created through the raw atmosphere and ringing and jarring of the chord patterns. Obvious parallels could be drawn to Darkthrone, Burzum, Horna or Nargaroth, but Man Daitõrgul doesn't sound too much like any one of them, and he throws in numerous, numbing acoustic passages and even a clean vocal sequence in "Norvaragell Sgă (Parte I)" above the samples of clanging armaments, battle and dying that shows the musician is willing to diversify his material where fitting.

I found myself marginally less inspired here by the faster, blazing guitar sequences in "Zo Evaƥƥ Ngeordeika (Ngeordeika across the Seas)" and "Am Nagh Velħvv Dukain Ħarr (The Men that Become Wolves at Night)" than by the slower segments throughout the demo, but once he hits upon the latter, he evokes the same sorcery as his forebears, channeling the listener into some forgotten, foreign space in "Norvaragell Sgă (Parte II)" or the closing instrumental "Velħvor Kœ (Velfor’s Skin)". You can easily close your eyes here and envision the drifter, the survivor swept across the plains of the dead, the bones of the forsaken, although the guitars themselves might benefit from a degree of added variation. Nagh doesn't rely on synthesizers to do the work for him, it's the droning of the guitar chords themselves that are responsible for the atmospherics.

While Norvaragell Sgă does not entirely distinguish Man Daitõrgul from the hordes of other demo level and deep underground black metal projects, neither does it fail to deliver upon the grim, mythic concepts bred into the lyrical imagery. There were moments throughout this where I was certainly paying close attention despite the shortcomings of the drum programming and the general lack of versatility in its composure. None of the drawbacks are crippling, but they are evident to the ear. For a demo, its pretty straightforward, substantial and honest, with over 34 minutes of material, and it will be curious how Nagh continues to develop the scriptures and music of his cruel imagination in dark unison.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://www.myspace.com/mandaitorgul

Malevolent Creation - The Best of Malevolent Creation (2003)

As if The Best of Deicide was not enough of a perverse molestation of the Floridian death devotee, Roadrunner also put together a similar piece of plastic refuse for Malevolent Creation, who had been off the label for nearly a decade by its release. So, yes, that means the collection covers only their 1991-1993 period. Which is to say, two good albums (The Ten Commandments, Retribution), and then this other thing called Stillborn. Admittedly, this does feel more like a 'Roots of' collection as the sideline insists, since you're only getting the formative pieces of Phil Fasciana's puzzle, but once again I am prompted to remind the reader that this label had long since fucked and abandoned Malevolent Creation, and long since since turned out real DEATH METAL.

Face it, if your music was not selling like hotcakes (*crickets*), or not selling hotcakes but perpetuating off your band's name (Deicide), or not shifting gears fully into hardcore, groove (Obituary) and nu-metal (Sepultura) territory, you were no longer a part of Roadrunner's scheme; Malevolent Creation, who were never exactly one of the forerunners in the Florida scene despite their efforts and geographical placement, had not been part of the equation for quite some time. Their album sales were not up to muster and the band didn't review well. But in some sentimental twist, they now wanted to sell the audience (presumably the fans of Fasciana's firing squad) shit we already owned? Bollocks!

The length of the Best of Malevolent Creation is comparable to that of the Deicide release, with 18 tracks and 63 minutes of content, not presented in chronological order but with the tracks scattered fairly evenly across the Roadrunner releases (6x The Ten Commandments, 6x Retribution, and 4x Stillborn), and then there are two 'unreleased' tracks. But wait, they're NOT unreleased. The forgettable cover of Slayer's "Piece by Piece" had been released on the 2nd At Death's Door label compilation, and the demo version of "Genetic Affliction" (Stillborn) made it out through the miserable Joe Black compilation on Pavement. So rest assured, this is lock, stock and two smoking barrels: 100% bullshit. Not even of value to collectors.

If you've never heard this longstanding Florida outlet, then make a beeline straight for the first two records, also through Roadrunner, and offer your hard earned currency that way. Or buy a few copies from the band directly at a gig. They're the best Malevolent Creation has ever recorded, even if not the most brutal, and listening to either will provide a more fierce, fulfilling experience than The Best of Malevolent Creation, a shiny beer coaster haunting the bulldozed excess of an indifferent wasteland.

Verdict: Epic Fail [0/10]

http://www.myspace.com/malevolentcreation

Deicide - The Best of Deicide (2003)

About 2003, Roadrunner Records got the bright idea to release a series of wholly irrelevant compilation albums dubbed the 'Roots of' series, exhuming the corpses of their early 90s death metal vanguard to release them, re-arranged and poorly packaged upon the biggest suckers available. Rather than, you know, signing some NEW acts in the genre, and helping maintain its freshness and visibility (not to mention the now nu-metal label's integrity), they decided to flex the muscles of their CD printing press and distributors and foist yet another of these bargain bin-choking pieces of shit. It's the 'best of' Deicide, as selected by US, your robot overlords! Please consume this at your earliest discretion when attaining the latest albums from Slipknot and Machine Head. Have a nice day.

Essentially, The Best of Deicide is your chance to own 64 minutes of repressed material spanning much of the band's career (excepting their most recent album, In Torment In Hell). There are 20 tracks, so if this were say a free sampler being given out at gigs or through a magazine, it might count as a 'substantial' glimpse of the band's progression and regression throughout the years, to any nub into or just getting into brutal or old school death metal. Frankly, though, we could just listen to the Deicide (1990), Legion (1992) and Once Upon the Cross (1995) material and be done with this, since it trumps just about everything else found here, but even then I couldn't recommend a release such as this. There's something about listening to an album in its original form that gives the ardent listener a sense of completeness and perspective that is vastly superior to experiencing a highlight reel. You get the artwork, the packaging, the sequential creativity as the band had originally intended (well, most of the time), a crop of tunes written within the same general time frame, whether killer or filler.

Such things are taken out of context with The Best of Deicide. Even at the best of times, death metal is a niche market. There are no 'greatest hits' in the genre. This is not Billy Joel or Bryan Adams we're listening to. Sure, we all have our favorite individual tracks, even from a band of brutes like Glen Benton and company, but there is no impetus to experience them like this. By 2003, just about everyone not in a third world country was capable of burning his/her own mix CDs out of the Deicide albums he/she already possessed. Why not do that instead? Share them with a friend. Share them with your local preacher. Do not hand over money to Roadrunner for such a needless exercise in capitalism, when you could hand over the money for a good studio album (from this band, or any other in the field). The Best of Deicide is like going through a fast foot restaurant drive thru and handing over money for a meal you already ate and paid for. Don't be taken, because it only encourages them to keep dangling their dicks into your wallet.

Verdict: Epic Fail [0/10]

http://www.myspace.com/theofficialdeicidemyspacepage