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God Dethroned: Into the lungs of hell

08/09/10 || Daemonomania

Given that we’re a pretty Eurocentric and death-friendly crowd over here at teh Domination, I’m sure most of you have a track or two in your collection from God Dethroned. Might be something from their last release of WWI anthems. If you’re a tad blackened, it might be something from earlier in their discography. But if you’re anything like Sir Daemonstrable then it’s the pleasant death metal beating Sattler and crew served up on “Into the lungs of hell” which inhabits your playlist. And your dreams. At least, when your dreams aren’t about murder mysteries or childhood misdemeanors. Which doesn’t leave much dreamtime for Dutch metal in my subconscious unfortunately.

2003’s GD (not us) was mostly in mid-paced mode. There is certainly blasting throughout, but the focus is an accessibly lumbering attack. The weapons employed include the Serpent King’s powerful croak. He and van der Valk This Way lay down some massively catchy riffwork with dollops of melody plopped on top. Solos of the Amon Amarth persuasion are frequently performed. A submarine lurking off the coast of the Frisian Islands would get a few blips if their radar was set to bass detection. Way to go, BEEF! Drumming is a bit too clean to have a personality. And the production shines like an oiled cock in the sun, as the Lord would say.

Looking at “Lungs of Hellman’s mayo” in a vacuum, you could say God Deporcelainthroned knows how to put together a memorable tune.* Besides “Slaughtering the faithful” I often listen to this album front to back – probably have in fact done so about 100,000 times. Why? Because the band does such an excellent job of mixing aggression with hookery on a level that competes with “Once upon the cross”.

Problematically, the songs stick in your brain partially through the skill of GD, and partially because they basically take half a track and play it twice. For example, a Top 40 hit like “Soul sweeper” starts with a ‘Marthy intro, goes into three verses punctuated by a kind of mini chorus or whatever, then the chorus, then a big solo, then two out of the three same original verses (with IDENTICAL LYRICS), then chorus. End. Reminds me of another Benton-related project, actually. Think a much less blasty “Dechristianize”.

So repetition and some dumb lyrics (looking at you, “Tombstone”) are my only complaints with “Into the smoky lungs of Snoop Dogg”. Oh yeah, and they should have saved the slower title track until the middle of the album and opened with something faster like “Warcult”. Starting a metal album with a fast song is always a good idea. Nice job, Gorod Deboned, certainly a shitload better than the strangely bland follow-up “Lair of the white worm”. If thou thickens upon hearing melody infused into your death metal, but remainst flaccid listening to melodic death metal, pick ‘er up. Most copies come with a second disc of older material. Some of it recorded live. None of it to my liking.

*Was there one too many band name/album title jokes in that sentence? Maybe there were, and maybe you should eat my ballbatter.

8,5

Information

Released: 2003
Label: Metal Blade
Website: www.goddethroned.com
Band
Henri Sattler: vocals, guitars
Beef: bass, vocals
Jens van der Valk: guitars
Danny Servaes: keyboards
Arien Van Weesenbeek: drums

Tracklist
01. Into the Lungs of Hell
02. The Warcult
03. Enemy of the State
04. Soul Sweeper
05. Slaughtering the Faithful
06. Subliminal
07. The Tombstone (pizza)
08. Gods of Terror

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