The Toxic Touch

Extreme metal melting pot God Dethroned are one of the fronting figures of their trade. Already in their early life, the band began to mix death metal, thrash metal and black metal into sickly catchy metal of God Dethroned.

The seventh full length studio work 'The Toxic Touch' sticks to the roots, but also takes a few steps ahead. However, the directions the band have now moved are quite obvious to anyone who have followed this band. This is the most melodic album from the band to date. Thankfully, the melodies bear God Dethroned trademark. Together with Henri Sattler's (also guitar) recognizable growled voice the melodiousness makes the music easily identified. The band itinerates between chastisements such as 'Hating Life', 'Falling down' and 'Macabre World' to moody pieces e.g. the song 5 to 7 and 'Typhoid Mary', that hark back to 'Bloody Blasphemy' (1999) and 'The Grand Grimoire' (1997) albums. The moodier deparments is the band's stronger side in my opinion.

The band succeed to surprise too seldom, as beautilful and mellow, even though pretty familiar instrumental 'Away from Emptiness' happens to be one of those very rare occasions. God Dethroned stand, and they can stand with their heads up (remember those trademarks), in the triangle of Arch Enemy, new Kreator and Hypocrisy. Especially the synth work, which stays on the background, reminds me heavily of Hypocrisy. Just try 'Macabre World' and hear it for yourselves! Anyways, there's a few gems ('2014', 'On the Wings of Pestilence', 'The Day You Died' and 'Typhoid Mary'), but a couple pretty average pieces in GD standards ('Falling down' and 'Macabre World'), which make this another good and decent God Dethroned album, but the band bears potential for so much more.

One can't find anything to blame about the playing. The vivid drumming and lead guitar work especially are the things I like a lot. The production can be depicted easily: Organic and fucking hammering = intense! Abso-fucking-lutely awesome work by Jörg Uken, who doesn't ring any bells to tell the truth. Remember the name after this. Indeed, a wise decision by the band. Cover art is kept simple, but still there's some ugly PhotoShop filters used... Vocals vary from suicidal tendencies to drugs and to predictions of the end of mankind.

The limited first edition slipcase includes a bonus DVD of live set of nine songs captured at Germany's Summer Breeze 2005. Even though it's a cheapo, with clear picture but crippled sound (lacks of bass), it's surely a nice extra for the fans. Thankfully, we are almost completely spared from those evil MPG format flicks nowadays... By the way, this extra doesn't affect to score.

So, another goodie from God Dethroned. Maybe my expectations were a tad high when I read the band's comments about this work, but I must say that those "average" songs are beginning to open with time. It's possible, that God Dethroned are the best band of their ilk, which is melodic yet skullfucking metal. Now give me another dose, guys!

(originally written for ArchaicMetallurgy.com in 2006)

God Dethroned is a band that isn't MUCH talked about in the metal community. Not every 10th or say even every 500th metalhead that you’ll see at a gig will be flaunting a Villa-Vampiria shirt. If you frequent the online forums, you won't hear much buzz about them. Why? That's something I can't fuckin come to terms with. God Dethroned is highly underrated. This band, which started off as a seething blackened-death metal project, now spews out songs which border melodic-death metal and groove. Bloody Blasphemy is a favorite amongst us fans, but like most notable bands, every band has its Waterloo, which in the case of God Dethroned came in the form of 'The Lair of the White Worm'. Enter the year 2007 and the band had the impetus to bring something new to the table, something which would not only shine through the mediocrity of the previous album, but literally decimate and desecrate any ears that happened to fall prey to this music. The band released ‘The Toxic Touch’ and the rest is history.

The album opens with ‘Faithless’, a thirty second track which will cause any seasoned God Dethroned listener to straighten his back and strain his ears harder at the chants of the ‘serpent king’. Have I got your attention already? Well, at the risk of sounding a tad pretentious, that serves as an overture to the ensuing madness. The album gracefully moves on to the next track titled ‘Hating Life’. A prominent feature of the album is the smooth transition between its songs. The songs are structured around catchy riffs. That has been the band’s signature for most of their albums and ‘The Toxic Touch’ proves to be no different. The next three tracks that follow are sequined with these gems of memorable guitar riffage. The brilliantly conjured guitar work is something which stands out beyond anything else. In fact, in my humble opinion, I can even claim these songs to be the band’s best till date. The guitar solos are equally commendable and not even for a second, do they seem out of place. For example, in the song ‘The Day You Died’, the guitar solo at 2:09 starts off with a sense of optimism and then it gradually pushes the song deeper into somberness. The choruses on ‘2014’ and ‘On the Wings of Pestilence’ will get you to sing along instantly. On the surface everything seems grand but I get a little annoyed. The lyrical content isn’t up to the mark. Don’t get wrong, these aren’t poorly written lyrics. It’s just that if these well crafted tunes were coupled with stronger lyrics which have a certain depth to them, the band would definitely be scaling new heights.

‘Away From Emptiness’ is something which completely took me by surprise. I was pleasantly surprised though because I certainly wasn’t expecting an instrumental from these guys. It looks like God Dethroned isn’t content with their usual thrash assault. It’s a sign of an evolving band. The last three tracks are more in the vein of the first few tracks. There’s more groove-laden-guitar work for the listener to feast on. ‘Macabre World’ is my favorite track on this album, mainly because of the various elements that the song comprises of – the blazing guitar work, the intermittent yet just the right dose of symphony and to top it off, Henri’s snarling growls. ‘Typhoid Mary’ is a song which slows down the tempo of the album and in my opinion is like the ‘Soul Capture 1562’ of ‘The Toxic Touch’. The album closes with ‘Fail to Exist’, a track which sums up the band’s exploits.

The production on the album is crisp, though I would have loved it more if the bass was a little more prominent. I rate ‘The Toxic Touch’ highly, not only amongst the other God Dethroned albums, but also from my entire collection. I have survived at least over a hundred plays of this album and it doesn’t fail to impress me every time I start listening to it again from track 1. The album in its entirety is rock solid and what weak links that crop up in the form of lyrical content are in fact unnoticeable to the casual listener because quite frankly the sheer brilliance of everything else overshadows it. This album does not disappoint and is a must have for the God Dethroned fan or for that matter any ardent melodic death metal follower.

God Dethroned was leaning that direction with “The Lair of the White Worm,” but now groove and melody have been officially infused with their Blackened Death/Thrash sound.

“The Toxic Touch” still manages to keep things brutal but all of the tracks are twice as catchy and memorable than anything else God Dethroned has done before. The music is still black-inspired, although not nearly as much as before, primarily found in the vocals. The overall speed of the album is slower than previous releases as well, foregoing pure brutality for sweet guitar hooks.

The thrash-style riffs are awesome, and the guitar leads and solos that are in nearly every song fit in perfectly; Isaac Delahaye abilities are simply fantastic. Drums have changed a bit with noticeably less blast beats but they still shine bright and add to the groove. Bass is just as great and also adds significantly to God Dethroned’s new sound. However, the greatest instrument the in the band’s arsenal is Henri Sattler’s vocals. His signature snake-like death-rasps are (in my opinion) the greatest in extreme metal, all the while being 100% comprehensible. He is truly worthy of the nickname The Serpent King. Making everything pure perfection is the production on “The Toxic Touch,” making sure that not a single magnificent aspect of the album is unheard.

Just like what can be found in their previous album’s “Nihilism,” God Dethroned can take an already brutal song and kick it out even louder halfway through. At 3:04 during both “2014" and “On Wings of Pestilence” the choruses are repeated, only with everything turned up to eleven. I absolutely love it.

God Dethroned became my favorite band with their amazing combination of genres and sounds and they finally finished their transformation with “The Toxic Touch.” While I am a little disappointed that a majority of the black metal influence was lost, this was still one of the best releases in 2006. Certainly a huge difference from their early years, but in this Blackened Death/Groove/Thrash band’s case, change is good.

Standout tracks: “2014,” “On Wings of Pestilence,” “The Day You Died,” “Typhoid Mary” and “Fail to Exist.”

My score: 41 out of 45 stars = 91%

I always find it interesting when a band mixes up their material by changing their musical style. It's important for a band try out new ideas and exercise different forms of music because it allows the band to plant new seeds of innovation while maintaining their trademark frontier. God Dethroned have recently gone through this phase by switching their music into something completely unpredictable. Rather then a standard death metal album, God Dethroned have adopted strong amounts of groove riffs and melody to create "The Toxic Touch."

The music on "The Toxic Touch" isn't like anything I would have ever expected from this band. The biggest change this band has made since their last album is the guitar work. The riffing on "The Toxic Touch" has God Dethroned doing a full blown melodic death attack. "The Liar Of The White Worm" had God Dethroned using just a tad of melody in their riffs, but the melodic attribute now dominates this album. Along with the melodic riffs, the use of groove riffs are used fairly often on this album. Tracks like "Faithless" and "Hating Life" possess a quasi Pantera riffing style. This unique groove style is defiantly something interesting, especially when considering God Dethroned's older material and how this style was nonexistent. "The Toxic Touch" has some shockers I never thought God Dethroned would try. The two songs that still manage to surprise me with each listen are the atmospheric "Typhoid Mary" and the progressive instrumental "Away From Emptiness, which is filled with clean guitars. That's right, God Dethroned have used clean guitars! These two songs, especially "Away From Emptiness," are very fun to listen to and show a different side of God Dethroned.

Unlike any previous release by God Dethroned, this album has almost no blastbeats. The blastbeat is obviously an important piece of any death metal band, but because of God Dethroned's musical evolution, the blast beat is hardly used. Drummer Arien Van Weesenbeek still manages to stay technical while drumming, but I believe this new drumming approach restricts his talent. Arien can easily do so much more with his drumming. If his drumming was properly used, "The Toxic Touch" would be much more exciting.

Remember the Satanic tales and anti-Christian rants singer Henri Sattler spat out on previous albums? Well, you can forget about them, because these lyrical topics are nowhere to found on "The Toxic Touch." Instead of the Satanic themes, the lyrical topics now revolve around personal themed issues. "Hating Life" is nice suicidal downer while tracks like "The Day You Died" and "Macabre World" focus around similar depressive subjects.

"The Toxic Touch" is defiantly an interesting album. I'm not sure how hardcore God Dethroned fans will react after hearing this, but I thought it was decent. Check it this one if you're looking for something different.

This review was orginally written for: http://www.Thrashpit.com