The Deeds of the Antichrist

Evil God are a fairly new extreme metal band from Austin Texas. They play a highly technical brand of death/speed metal. I recently received their debut EP The Deeds of the Antichrist, which was released in 2008 on Negativity Records, free when I ordered the rerelease of Impetigo’s Horror of the Zombies and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. When I first saw the CD, read the bands name and the title of the EP I expected that, when I put it into my CD player, I would be confronted with some poorly produced, and quite frankly awful, black metal that was near impossible to listen to. Instead I heard well written and well produced extreme metal songs with an impressively high level of musicianship, these guys were good and the songs were, dare I say it, catchy.

The album opens with a minute long instrumental/atmospheric intro track witch perfectly sets up the atmosphere for the rest of the album. We are then launched into the high speed riffing of “Dissociative Fugue State” with its machine gun style drumming and “melodic” guitar. This song, like the others on the EP, is well structured with plenty of nice guitar licks and an even faster paced section in the middle. This is extreme metal but it is actually quite easy to pick out the tune as well. The vocals are interesting. They’re sort of black metal screeches but they sound more like they’ve been done with effects and they’re not extremely raw so if you wanted you could try and get the lyrics.

The next track “Malignant Narcissist” carries on in the same way. I love the intro to this song. It starts with just a guitar on its own before the other instruments kick in. Yet again we are treated to theses guys’ instrumental skill as the guitars solo over the light speed drumming. The assault finally slows towards the end to give the guitarist yet another chance to show of his skills.

A keyboard intro leads into the final song “Sleeping Sickness”. I like this song and in places the use of the keyboard does work out but at some points it seems to be at an awkward juxtaposition to the other instruments. Fortunately this section of the song it is not long before this section of the song is over and we get to hear a great, considerably slower song. In this song the bass is slightly more prominent and although it is mainly used in accompaniment there are a few sections where we get to see what the bass player can really do with his instrument, it’s safe to say that he doesn’t disappoint. In the second half of the song the keyboard makes further appearances, this time to a considerably greater effect. The second half is again slower and it grinds along until a final guitar lick and a fade out to the end of the song and ultimately, the EP.

Overall this is a great EP which, if you have a few quid, you should definitely pick up. The clear production of the songs really gives the instrumental ability of the band a chance to shine through. I am eagerly anticipating the release of their debut full length which, according to the Negativity Records website, should be released sometime fairly soon.