For the last decade, Deicide has followed roughly the same trajectory with its sound. Modern Deicide is full, forceful, and absolutely crushing. As I discussed in my review of their 2018 album, the band's catalog can be easily divided into the "cutting" and scooped style of their early classics, and the more "bludgeoning" feeling of the later works. And the band's latest album, Banished By Sin, belongs squarely in the latter tradition. Sure, many of the chord progressions and riff patterns could have appeared on Legion, but the album feels much more at home with In the Minds of Evil.
Of course, there's few outright surprises to be found here, but there are moments that jump out as unexpected. One is the trashier feel on the opening track, "From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall," and "Faithless." Of course, death metal in many ways emerged from thrash, but this style strikes me as more conspicuous on these songs than many others from the band. But beyond that, longtime Deicide fans will find a lot to enjoy on songs like "Doomed To Die" and the anthemic "Sever The Tongue."
However, the real gems are to be found later on the album. Two songs in particular contain some absolutely stellar songwriting. The first is "Woke From God," which features a captivating series of interlocking riffs that guide the sonic narrative forward. Additionally, the dual-delivery of Glenn's brutal vocals and Steve Asheim's unrelenting drums is simply devastating in combination. This is what you come to a modern Deicide album to hear.
The same could be said for the almost overwhelming barbarity of "A Trinity Of None." The song itself is very simple, again featuring guitar picking patterns and drum beats that could have emerged across the band's career. But for some reason, everything comes together so perfectly that it all feels fresh again. I cannot stress enough the importance of how the guitars interact with Glenn's vocal patterns here, as it really makes everything work to make it a catchy and engaging song.
Aside from these two highlights, Banished By Sin is a solid Deicide album. The title track will get the circle pit moving. "Bury The Cross…With Your Christ" and its silly music video will be shocking to the few people still offended by this sort of thing. "Ritual Defied" has some impressive guitar precision, and "I Am I…A Curse Of Death" delivers pound after pound of death metal devastation.
One element that definitely helps this album is the production. According to Glenn Benton:
"You lose everything once you compress," Benton says. "You compressing everything while you're recording it, and then you're compressing the shit out of it while you're mixing it, and then you're compressing the fuck out of it while you're mastering it. I didn't want to lose the magic this time. Josh Wilbur did an incredible job keeping my vision intact—exactly how I wanted it to sound. I can't thank him enough for doing that. I'm pretty pleased with the production."
Couldn't agree more! And while I can't say I'm a big fan of the cover-art style, I really honor Glenn's attitude about it. He's going to do whatever he wants. And so long as Deicide is putting out albums of this quality, it'll be worth checking out whatever that is.
