I'm kinda underwhelmed by this. 'Annihilation Crusade' and the title track are absolute barn burners of tracks, but the album really flounders around for a really long period of time after that, finally redeeming itself with the closing track. I don't feel like this would be as big of an issue was the production not punchier; Dan Swano's melodeath-style clean up job here really takes the sharpness out of the band's riff-writing, and actually kind of deflates the band's intentions.
For what it's worth, though, I feel like this is still a solid, somewhat varied release, and a much-needed change of pace from the two schools of thought on death metal; those who do it melodically and those who absolutely do not. God Dethroned have been compared to Amon Amarth for years (just listen to 2014 for irrefutable proof) in the sense that they do both without sacrificing either too much, but with Amon Amarth moving more towards a softer, more heavy-metal influenced style, these guys (and maybe the Absence!) are about the only band doing it right. Hopefully this isn't the final album they've been suggesting, because I'd like to see this get expanded on in future releases.
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