Reviews
Destroying Divinity: Dark future
18/07/11 || Habakuk
Does naming yourselves after a big-name band’s song help in losing your no-name status? Hardly. Does playing bad-ass death metal in the vein of one of your inspirations? At least a bit more. Destroying Divinity went for the double approach.
“Viel hilft viel”, as we Germans tend to say (spare me the scatporn jokes), and it works for these guys. In spite of the Monstrosity quote in their song title, they go for some serious Incantation worship, however bringing a pretty good, punchy production job along, as opposed to what you will find with most of the NY stalwarts’ own material. Take heed here, McEntee and consorts, it doesn’t take away the ultra-evil vibe completely, yet it definitely helps the engagement of the music at hand. Sounds like a winner to me.
Especially since the rest doesn’t stray too much from the tried-and-trusted formula of occultly inclined death metal. Fans and haters alike should instantly recognize the typical plodding reliance on blast beats topped off with disharmonic, crunchy guitar work completely covering the lower frequency ranges. The occasional double bass section helps producing the desired nods of the listener’s head, but from time to time a rhythm change interrupts the patterns so heads don’t get caught in endless noddery. Thus, while you can easily use this material as a song carpet underlying your daily goatraping routine, this is just as good when actually devoting your full attention to it. Nothing sticks out as a potentially irritating factor (strike shit vocals and bad soloing from your “things that turn me off a death metal band” list for these folks), since all components are nicely integrated into one big whole. Sure, it’s same-same at the end of the day, but with this level of quality it can’t be same enough to me.
Fans of the NYDM sound should definitely give this a listen, and possibly the album might even serve as a gateway into the less well-produced gems of the sub-subgenre for those not entirely convinced.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Brutal Bands (!!!1)
- Website: Destroying Divinity MySpace
- Band
- Erik: vocals
- Gassi: guitars
- Flagin: guitars
- Zdenek “Ommurtag” Blaha: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. To Live in Gloom of the Beyond
- 02. At War with Two Worlds
- 03. Birth of Faceless Killer
- 04. Putrid Stench of Past
- 05. Undead in the Darkness
- 06. Cult
- 07. Prophecy
- 08. Name Written with Blood
- 09. Face to Face to Destiny
