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5.5
- Bands:
DEICIDE - Duration: 00:38:59
- Available from: 04/26/2024
- Label:
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Reigning Phoenix Music
Streaming not yet available
If the recruitment of a young and prepared guitarist (Taylor Nordberg, already seen at work with the free-range Inhuman Condition) and the choice to finally celebrate one’s past in a worthy way (the tours dedicated to the milestone “Legion”), had been seen by many as the best moves that Deicide could have made to relaunch their prices within the death metal scene, the new “Banished by Sin” takes care of bringing everyone back down to earth and remembering how, at least in the studio , the Tampa band really struggles to be relevant and shift the balance.
A good six years after the previous “Overtures of Blasphemy”, having left Century Media and settled in the court of the newly formed Reigning Phoenix Music (Kerry King, Orden Ogan, Sebastian Bach), the quartet decides to re-present itself on the market with the yet another fluctuating and harmless album, reiterating how the excessive power of their colleagues Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse or Immolation – veterans still able to have their say and make albums worthy of their history – is not only distant, but unattainable.
On the other hand, although here the songwriting tends to show signs of recovery compared to 2018, thanks to the space given to Nordberg and some flashes from the usual Steve Asheim, this collection also soon loses comparison both with the cornerstones of the group (and up until now , if we want, there would be no need to cry scandal too much), both with episodes that are not very successful but still salvageable (“To Hell with God”, apart from the glossy production, has pieces that today our people can only dream of), and – obviously – with what is offered from other fronts by the death metal panorama, just think of the various “Chaos Horrific” and “Ashes, Organs, Blood and Crypts” or the efforts of aggressive groups such as Vitriol, Skeletal Remains and Necrot.
In short, it is first and foremost the weight of certain albums recorded in the past – which requires us to put things in perspective – and the competition of an overflowing panorama of valuable works that cut off the legs of today’s Deicide, which, getting bogged down in a revival of clichés tied to their mythology (the lean and thrashing guitar work, Benton’s ‘rhyming’ vocal lines, etc.), they end up losing sight of what makes the difference in this genre, namely the art of the riff and the ability to sound equally ferocious and inspiring.
Instead, as already underlined in the track-by-track of a few weeks ago, in these grooves there is very little that is compelling and barbaric for a listener accustomed to following the developments of the scene and, above all, indoctrinated on the lessons of the old Deicide (and we are not necessarily talking about those of the debut, the aforementioned “Legion” or “Once upon the Cross”, but also those of works such as “The Stench of Redemption” and “Till Death Do Us Part”), for about forty minutes of music where ‘off’ and ‘cheesy’ are definitions that recur a little too often in association with the songs.
All things considered, the singles “Bury the Cross… with Your Christ” and “Sever the Tongue” would be enough, with their uptempo progression that is neither violent nor captivating, given the lack of memorable riffs or structures, to make a idea on the stylistic code of this thirteenth full-length, whose inability to play with cunning, perhaps concealing an inspiration that is not at the top of the range with a brutal and self-quoting approach at the very least, is the reflection of a formation now disconnected from reality, which does not he at all follows the scene of which he believes himself to be a part and which, in his condition of arrogance and ignorance, actually thinks that this is the best way to play traditional death metal in 2024.
A framework of modesty and – we repeat – harmlessness that does not inspire smiles and does not arouse tears, within which Glen Benton and his companions move impervious to the fact that, outside their bubble, things regularly settle on very different levels of grip and authority, with just a handful of tracks (the opener “From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall”, “Faithless”, “Woke from God”, parts of the title track) to lift their heads a little from the general dullness .
Ultimately, unless you have a good mouth, it’s difficult to find real reasons to get excited or to leave “Banished…” in rotation for longer than a couple of days, testifying to a return that (as it had been for ” Overtures…”) only makes us miss Deicide with whom we grew up and who gave us so much in musical terms.
The hope, at this point, is that at least live the four Americans don’t dwell too much on these parts, rather remembering the content of a recent setlist like this…
