DEICIDE „Scars of the crucifix”

RUNNING TIME: 29:32

When I first heard that Deicide had signed to Earache over a year ago, I was expecting great things from them. And I mean great things. I was disappointed with their previous two outings and they never quite matched the greatness found on “Once upon the cross”. For me, that particular record was all that was good about death metal, especially the fabulous production.

Now, although this newie has a far superior production to the last two, there is still something that I don't like about it and after repeated listens, it becomes clear that the guitars aren't loud enough in some places – Glen Benton's vocals drown everything out and the guitars are fighting to be heard. However, this is not the main problem I have with this album.

I will be brutally honest. The songs do absolutely nothing for me. Yes, they are brutal, but so are 99% of death metal bands. There are no catchy riffs as with Once upon the cross or even Serpents of the light. The whole thing passes by in a blur and I'm left trying to work out where one song ended and the other started. I hate to be saying things like this about a Deicide record as I have a lot of respect for them, but there are newer, more exciting bands around at the moment and to be honest, I'd rather be listening to them. One redeeming factor for this album is that the dual layered vocals sound very brutal.

I feel very sad to say that I won't be listening to this again.