HISTORY
Immolation, a death-metal band which was created in 1986 in New York. This band might be considered as a regular death-metal band for those who are not familiar to death-metal, but if you are a big death-metal fan you can hear that this band does have some special and/or unique features. One thing that
Immolation has been known for is their half-complex and sometimes crazy guitar work, while many bands play often ''repetitive music'' or more melodic death-metal
Immolation created their own special sound. Many of their albums sounded different,
''Here In After'' was pretty slow and very complex in its material and
''Failures For Gods'' was a bit more turned up in pace and maybe had a bit less complicated material. This band plays death-metal in old-school formula, the vocals are dark growls, the drum patterns are often very intense and the guitar work is often energetic and frantic.
ALBUM INFORMATION
This album was very different than the albums that I have heard before this, this time the band seems to have taken some adrenaline shots of something that has energy. This album is called
''Unholy Cult'' and basically every song in this album is a fully loaded death-attack with massive energy and aggression. Every song is fast, brutal and often very catchy, the drum work is nearly flawless or
is flawless, there are three guitarists in this album who makes an awesome sound and the bass is much more audible this time. As any death-metal band these guys focus their lyrics against god and jesus, basically everything that has to do with god and religion.
BAND MEMBERS
There is a group five this time, we start with frontman
Ross Dolan. His vocals in this album are still the same orchish and grunting stuff that he uses in the previous albums, but this time the vocals are a bit faster and maybe not so deep or dark. You can actually hear the lyrics pretty good, but I guess there are not many people out there who really cares about the lyrics, I don't. Back to
Ross, his bass is much more audible this time which was avery good thing in my opinion. You can hear the brutal sound from the bass in almost every song, there are no standout performances from
Ross but he is doing a great job to form a thick and rock-solid rhythm section. According to the facts that I have about this album it appears that there are three guitarists in this album, they are
Robert Vigna,
Tom Wilkinson and former
Angel Corpse member
Bill Taylor. They all are doing great in this album, the lead work is great and the rhythm sections are solid. It does sound like that the guitar work has starting to get more progressive than complexive this time, the guitar work was pretty complex and wierd in their previous material but this was different. The variety of riffs and shredds is very good, it sometimes sounds like black-metal based riffing, even some small thrash riffs appears in some of the songs, and their own twisted concoction of guitar playing appears as well.
Alex Hernandez is the member who makes this album excellent, he delivers blast beats, double-bass kicking and of course the classic machine-gun drumming. Every drum pattern is quite unique for the songs, the beats and double-bass drumming is placed perfect in every song, nothing sounds odd or misplaced, flawless drum work.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS ALBUM
This was definitely one of the best
Immolation albums that I have heard yet, one thing I really liked was the drumming. Songs like the fast and brutal
Of Martyrs, And Man and the slower but heavier
Reluctant Messiah had some of the best drum patterns and song structures in general, both were catchy and you could hear every instrument.
Unholy Cult was also a song that made my adrenaline flowing, it starts off pretty slow but very heavy and it later gets more speed, more variety in the pattern and the vocals were strong. Another cool thing I liked here was the frantic and energetic guitar solos, the solos were much longer, advanced and more technical if you compare them to their previous albums. I also thought that their twisted and crazy self-invented guitar style still appeared in some of the songs,
Sinful Nature was a song that had both a wicked guitar solo and crazy guitar work, but it was yet fast, heavy and brutal. There was only one thing that I thought was a bit dull was the vocals, they are still the same deal.
Ross gruffs on with his ''single-tracked'' growling, it is though a very effective vocal style but when you always hear the same stuff over and over you will get tired, sooner or later.
MY CONCLUSION
Man, this album was awesome, it grabbed me by the ba**s and wouldn't let go. I just had to listen through the whole song before I moved on to the next. The whole album was loaded with aggression, heaviness and speed, every song felt special and the material didn't felt repetitive in any way. The album had more atmosphere and depth than the other albums that I have heard, its hard to describe but this album just felt so enormous. The only thing that I still don't like is the vocals from
Ross but that is my own opinion. I will recommend this album to any death-metal fan, this album was a perfect mix between old and new, old-school death-fans would definitely enjoy this. This band might not be a critical band in the death-metal genre but this is one of the best death-metal bands that I have heard. I hope you had a good time reading this and I hope that I have given you a good guidance with this review.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Of Martyrs, And Man
-- Unholy Cult
-- Sinful Nature
-- Bring Them Down
This album will be given a 4.5/5 because of the high tempo, superb drum work and the progressive/technical guitar work
