Deceased - Ghostly White (2018)

Deceased have become one of our most enduring US death metal bands; granted they temper that genre with a lot of speed, thrash and traditional metal elements and have done so for the last 30+ years, but when it comes to their mainline releases, they've become synonymous with quality since Fearless Undead Machines and arguably even earlier than that. Ghostly White is another ambitious record where songwriting and pacing are key, structures and riffs are paired up alongside the lyrics and narrative of the themes, and there's absolutely no wanking or nonsense that doesn't serve the band's consistent style. The songs can pop off in 3-4 minutes or be blown out to over 13 and you don't get any noticeable dip in quality, everything is as it needs to be written.

To some extent, it might lack some of the 'surprise' from albums like Supernatural Addiction and Surreal Overdose, since we're so used to them writing in this style. It's honestly hard to even dub this proper 'death metal', outside of King's harsh vocals, but in a way, that's kind of why it is, like Root is to black metal, these guys are an outlier in their genre who think for themselves and rarely sound like anyone else outside of some of their original 80s peers. But if we're analyzing the music directly, it's a mix of thrash, speed and heavy metal which is enriched with creepy melodies and leads and that hoarse and unmistakable tone of the vocals. There's a rawness about the mix, more so than a few of the other albums, which renders this thing perfectly timeless, with brash rhythm guitars and wild leads that almost always sound awesome and well-rendered into the ghastly atmosphere that their productions always deliver.

I don't think "Mrs. Allardyce" is the best track on the record as an opener, I don't really start getting drawn into this one until "To Serve the Insane" with its descending, mournful chorus melody, or "The Shivers" which is another nice speed/heavy metal rager with a great, simplistic melody that pokes out into the night. The aforementioned 13+ minute opus "Germ of Distorted Lore" is quite good, having Deceased play with some slower, almost martial sounding sections to break up the thrashing outbreaks, and "Pale Surroundings" stands out as another catchier tune later in the track list with some eerie female spoken word parts. That said, there isn't actually a weak song here, it's just not putting its best foot forward, but drawing you deeper into its web before you get to the truly memorable moments, and that's often the calling card of a well-written record. Which this is, and it's another victory for one of our finest USDM institutions, and probably mandatory for horror metal fanatics the world over.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

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