GOD DETHRONED - The Lair Of The White Worm
November 23, 2004, 20 years ago
(Metal Blade)
Dutch mixers of exotic alloys God Dethroned are like the missing link between Carnal Forge and Amon Amarth, year after year combining complex, speedy death metal (their form in and of itself is a hybrid of Scandinavian and American styles) with Nordic melodic Maidenisms. And pointedly like Carnal Forge, they sorta seem to go over everybody's head, further throwing up smokescreens with odd lyrical content, evidenced by titles like 'The Grey Race', 'Sigma Enigma', 'Arch Enemy Spain' and the unsavoury title of this record, which actually, coughs up a bracing, defacing title track artfully combining blasts and groovier, grinding patterns. All the while, God Dethroned present such forward-thinking, complicated stylistic signals through the filter of hard, steely, hi-fidelity production values, including shoving, surging guitar sounds from hell, sort of the headphone version of the old Grave/Dismember/Entombed thing, with shades of Hypocrisy for munching, crunching, unyielding pleasure. Further dimensions unfold as the record marches on, including old school American thrash, a tip into black metal for 'The Grey Race', and within 'Rusty Nails' evocations of epic Maiden power balladness, the record closing with a nice surprise, 'Salt In Your Wounds' being a chugging mid-metaller set to a swirling, inverted beat, punctuated by different movements - a microcosm of the intelligent album as a whole.
