Into the Lungs of Hell

God Dethroned release their 5th studio album in a lame-looking digipak (and lame booklet art, made with PhotoShop, again). If death or thrash metal is your stuff, don't mind the graphics here! No wonder the digipak looks like it's made fast, since the original good looking cover has a picture of burning city. Still, it's the music that matters.

Starting surprisingly slow with an epic title song, it is clear, that 'Into the Lungs of Hell' needs a few spins... The songs are a few in number, but there is enough material for any metal album. The album is wide enough in musical spectrum, but still holds together fantastically, even though thrashy 'Slaughtering the Faithful' sounds a bit like an outsider. One can hear different shades of death metal (from doomy to blast beat stuff), heavy metal, thrash metal, wonderful melodic lead work, admirable drumming, actually anything that would make a great metal album. Yes, it's more varying again (remember their more basic death metal album 'Ravenous' [2001]?). Speed doesn't mean brutality, but there are some fast songs. I feel that this is a bit similar to some of the better "newer" records from Hypocrisy (like classic 'Abduction' [1996]). Still, it is all God Dethroned, since they have their style, no doubt about it when hearing that bluesy lead guitar tone. Their black metal influences (there's some on 'The Grand Grimoire' (1997), you can't deny that) aren't present here.

Musicianship is extremely high within the band. New skins-basher Ariën van Weesenbeek brings so much energy into the playing and his beats are truly fantastic in speed and precision, if not truly original. Guitar duo Henri (also main growled vocals, sometimes pretty close to Carcass' Jeff Walker) and Jens are magnificent and very metal indeed. Bassist Beef also does provide some growling. The sound is organic and balanced. No studio tricks or anything. Henrik Larsson recorded this in Berno Studios, Malmö, Sweden. Good-sounding stuff, but so are a lot of nowadays' albums. However, this sounds simply timeless, almost retro in a good way. The lyrics are usual stuff; death, war, modern society, religions. One line's funnily close to a certain 1980s pop song here: "every move you make, evey step you take" (The Police, perhaps)!

Bonus disc is a good treat for any God Dethroned fan. Live sounds bootlegged and videos (promotional videos of 'Villa Vampiria' and 'Under the Golden Wings of Death' are included) have quite a bad picture quality, not to mention simply insignificant information provided on a multimedia part. But this is like a part of 'The Ancient Ones' (2000) included for free! A good bargain, for sure.

Now, after various spins given, I can assure you, that once again God Dethroned have created a record, that I find extremely good. It differs from their back catalogue, but never too much. Varying material, memorable songs, somewhat retro in its atmosphere, bloody great metal feel throughout the album. The band does rule, I love the album. Another bloody massacre!!!

(originally written for ArchaicMetallurgy.com in 2003)

On this album, God Dethroned manage to exemplify the sound that we all associate with European Death - some blasting, some melody, and well-placed slower sections. They do so without being overly predictable or boring, and many of the tracks on "Into the Lungs of Hell" are real standouts for the genre. However, God Dethroned have fallen into two patterns at this point in their career that prove to be tremendous drawbacks - these are the flaws that keep ITLOH from "classic" status.

The positive first - everyone in God Dethroned is at the top of their game in terms of performance. Both Sattler's vocals and guitar playing are vicious. His vocals deserve special mention - for the most part he has a throaty, venemous hiss that is quite charismatic and makes him one of the more identifiable growlers out there. The drumming is similar in its spot-on blastbeats, relentless double bass, and fast thrashy beats. Nothing new about having an exceptional drummer in a death metal band though, and the skinwork here is nothing revolutionary. The guitars play some great melodies when not dishing out the punishing breakdowns or picking away at light speed - in fact they remind me of Amon Amarth's work quite frequently.

All this comes together well for tracks like "The Warcult," the truly headbangable "Enemy of the State," the epic anti-religious "Soul Sweeper," and the punishing "Subliminal." My favorite track on here is "Tombstone," though it does contain both of the difficulties that plague this disc.

The first is sometimes cheesy, other times repetitive lyrics. The repetition I will deal with in a minute, let's get to the cheese first. Now, God Dethroned are capable of writing some good lyrics, and their earlier works attest. And there are flashes of great lyrical content here and there, but overall it seems like they kind of half-assed it. "Tombstone," for example, talks about opening a tombstone (really?) and finding a skeleton waiting to be free. While it is cool to have lyrics from the perspective of someone rotting in the ground - sure it's been done before - just how in the hell do you "open" a tombstone? Maybe its just a tough translation error, but it annoys me.

As for the repetition, that's a result of song construction - the songs often just repeat themselves in what appears to be a bid to make each track longer. That tends to grate on the listener's nerves, because no matter how many good sections you have in a song, no one wants to hear them played again and again and again in the same order. That really brings down the title track, which had the potential to be an epic, slow, evil opener. God Dethroned figured since they were only writing half songs, I guess they decided to write half the lyrics too - then just follow the same repetitive formula.

My only other complaint is unnecessarily melodic openers to songs that don't have any schmaltzy melodic content. I've noticed other bands doing this too, Eurodeath artists especially. Please don't put a minute of eighties style twin guitar noodling at the beginning of a track that switches right into brutality immediately after the intro - then never goes back to the noodling. I don't want to hear it - it doesn't fit.

Despite the flaws, ITLOH is a deeply enjoyable, if a little stereotypical listen. I can safely recommend it to fans of Amon Amarth, Yyrkoon, Iniquity, and Aborted. Enjoy, just be careful when you OPEN THE TOMBSTONE.