Review Summary: Redemption just doesn’t smell as good as it used to.
The Stench of Redemption was great. Forcefully melodic, brutal while still retaining a sense of credibility, it was only slightly let down by Benton’s tiresome vocals and the bands ridiculous image (although this doesn’t bear much relevance to the music). It was a big jump instrumentally, where the band proved that they could actually write good songs, not the repetitive dribble they used to play. So, I had high hopes for Deicide’s new album,
Till Death Do Us Part, but for the most part, I was let down.
Personally, I don’t find Benton’s vocals all too appealing. They’re trite, and generally don’t vary in tone whatsoever. I’ll acknowledge the fact that Benton’s vocals on
Till Death Do Us Part are decent compared to other Deicide albums, i.e. they’re quite deep and sonorous, without sounding crude or lame, but in terms of absolutes I would not deem him as a talented vocalist. Luckily for Benton the production on the album favors his fast paced gibbering. Even still, this doesn’t stop the vocals, and more generally the album, from being plagued by repetition. For one, I was not able to differentiate between most songs from a vocal stand point. Benton simply utters the lyrics in a similar rhythm throughout the album, satiating the sound and resulting in what is a poor album vocal wise. On a side note however, I really enjoyed Benton’s screaming vocals at the beginning of the track ‘Horror in the Halls of Stone’. A little bit of variety can go a long way.
As mentioned before,
The Stench of Redemption was great from an instrumental perspective; it was heavy and fast, but still kept a sense of melody and originality. Traces of this are apparent on
Till Death Do Us Part (it’s easily the band’s most similar album to Redemption), but a lot of the songs fall into a mish mash of riffing and drums that don’t really offer anything special. This is not to say that there aren’t good riffs on the album, and it’s an important thing to note that Deicide have once again shown they actually have some song-writing ingenuity, but to be frank the album pales alongside it’s most recent predecessor. I’m glad to note however that the moments in which Deicide actually slow the music down, or put a little melody into their solos (rather than the blisteringly fast and absolutely useless solos from early albums), are very good. These slower moments are few and far between on
Till Death Do Us Part, and the solos are unfortunately not as prevalent as they were on
The Stench of Redemption; they are there, they are quite good, but in my opinion were not utilized as much as they could have, and none of them were exceptional.
Steve Asheim, as he has always done, does nothing but impress on the album. Unrelenting and maniacal, his beats do wonders for the songs, and I’d be hard pressed to even follow this band if he wasn’t a member. Sadly, this one half of the rhythm section is the only half you’ll hear; Benton’s bass is again non-existent. I sometimes wonder why they bother keeping him.
Till Death Do Us Part is not a bad album, but after
The Stench of Redemption, it just felt like a bit of a let down. It’s a little brash, but I would go as far as saying it feels like the leftovers from Redemption. This is not actually the case in reality, and it’s not to say the album is void of good songs, but as an album it just doesn’t have what it takes to be more than ‘reasonable’. They have potential to branch out from mediocrity, as they did with
The Stench of Redemption, but
Till Death Do Us Part unfortunately does not fully reach this potential.
