Certainly isn't the production that's the issue, it's the half-baked songs. It's a shame, too, because there's some really strong riffs, they just get a bit lost in those one-dimensional songs.

Eh, live song I'll wait until a studio cut.

The worst offender on Harnessing Ruin is Our Savior Sleeps, in particular the intro. I listen to the title track all the time though, but the album as a whole is pretty flat

I love all of Immolation to varying degrees. Their cascading chaos of dissonant, churning and brutal riffing with the constantly shifting and changing bursts of percussion is truly addicting. Immolation has some of the most creative and visionary drumming in all of metal. You can listen to Immolation just for the drumming alone, and I don't think I can really say that about any other death metal band.

I actually loved Kingdom of Conspiracy, and I continue to revisit it every time I'm in the mood for some Immolation binging. It's a pretty great album. I love the mechanical, churning nature of it and I think it's definitely a grower of an album, because as you continue to listen to it more, more unveils itself.

Coming to the new album, the artwork I'm actually not much of a fan of. I tend to dislike these overly sterile, overly dramatic artwork. I don't like the "timbre" of the art either, as it looks too computerized. I do like Atonement for the album title though, simple and effective. As for the two (I think?) songs currently available to listen to, I thought "Epiphany" was the stronger song and solid, but nothing that blew me away. "Destructive Currents" sounds more like a B side Immolation song, but still decent as well. Overall, they were okay and I'm looking forward to any new Immolation. Immolation is pretty much an automatic buy for me since all of their albums are at least decent, and I can't see them ever completely falling flat. So bring on the burning and boiling!

I think the artwork is fantastic, and one of their best. The imagery and the colours really do it for me, and the image is incredibly well done as well. I hope the music will deliver, and I have full confidence that it will! If Destructive Currents is an indication of the overall quality, it won't blow the classics out of the water (which are, for me, most importantly Unholy Cult and Close to a World Below), but it will be another great album anyway.

Somewhat agree, I like the art itself, but not the "timbre" as you say, it's too bright and glossy to me if that makes sense.

There's an unmistakable difference to hand painted versus done-on-computer. Most of computer done stuff is lifeless, far too crisp and carbon copy with noticeable filters, whereas hand painted has many aspects that can't be replicated on computer. It's sad that it's a mainstay in 90% of media.

It leaked. Pretty much a continuation of the last two albums.

I dunno man, digital painting has come a long ways. Wasn't Ecdysis done digitally? That cover art rules and doesn't look "overly digital" to me.

This is like when people say digital audio is lifeless and cold compared to analog. Only true for 1.) Complete amateurs, 2.) People who use 20 year old software, or 3.) It's a stylistic choice. I could quite literally produce as many examples of great, realistic digital paintings as you could produce examples of shitty ones. It's a non-issue. My brother is a professional visual artist who uses actual oil paints as well as digital paints, it's quite incredible.

Interesting... Alain from Primordial and Darragh from Invictus Productions said the production was modern but musically had more in common with the earlier albums, Alain in particular said its more of a continuation to Here in After.

Every band that's been around long enough markets their new releases as "a return to our roots!"

Atonement is Majesty and Decay part 2, no matter how much they transparently try to convince people otherwise in interviews, or by putting angels on the cover, or by using the old logo (lol).

My only complaint is the first half of Fostering the Divide, which is really slow with a weird drum part. Otherwise, loving it. Definitely going to be in my top 10. Now I got to wonder how the new Deicide will be. Even more curious since Kevin and Steve wrote it, with Mark Lewis doing solos.

"Lower" rightfully earns its place among the better Immolation songs since Close to a World Below in my opinion!

"Lower" is indeed a great track and probably the strongest on the album. Love the little clean guitar bit at the beginning, really works well in the context of the full album, too.

Had the promo for about a month and just finished reviewing it. It's definitely closer to Majesty than Kingdom, as the former was much more gradual and creeping and the latter a bit more fast and aggressive. I'd probably say it's my favorite of the three albums, though, as it's got a good sense of balance. Loving them good ol' pinch harmonic riffs too! They brought them back in spades.

that's promising to hear, considering kingdom is probably my least favourite immolation album, while majesty is great

Yeah, this album is awesome as fuck. I think I like it more than Majesty and Decay. I'll be listening to this one for quite a while for sure!

...and that's a problem how?

Cynical is just weird. If this album sucked I could see it as a legit knock against them but it doesn't. Also, there's the obvious fact that a statement like "a return to our roots" can mean/be interpreted to be many things. No, it doesn't sound 100% identical to Close to a World Below or anything but I believe the songs are extremely well put together and they probably went into this album with the mindset that they wanted to bring back the creative atmosphere they had at the time to write some good shit.

And, indeed, it does. So does Majesty and Decay.

So does the rest of the Shalaty-era output aside from Shadows in the Light.

Nah, sorry. They absolutely rule.

Musically, there's nothing separating Nu-Immolation from this shit, aside from Ross being a better vocalist than Nergal.

Musically, you're talking out of your ass. Lets see your notation analysis write up. If you don't like something that's fine, no need to lie about it though.

I will admit that Shalaty's probably my least favorite Immolation drummer, but I think he's really refined his style in the past few years. Shadows in the Light is one of my least favorite albums of theirs, though.

I cannot see any similarities to modern Immolation and Behemoth. None at all. That being said, Demigod is a great album, so what would the issue be even if they did share some overlap in sound?

I'm not going to bother tabbing out two songs I hate, but if you can't hear that they're the same fucking thing, you're deaf.

For the "aggressive" bit -- ride the pedal point, go off of it with dissonant chords two or three times, brief melodic turnaround.
For the "atomospheric" bit -- minor chords or dyads with a slow harmonizing lead over it.

Repeat these in A/B a couple times, riff change into bridge (cover the fact that the riff change here is totally random with a solo), then either A/B again for the finish or let the bridge tail out until you run out of random riffs.

@RapeTheDead, if you like Demigod, then it's entirely consistent for you to like later Immolation, I agree. Also, I don't think that the problem with their last decade+ of material falls entirely on Shalaty; it just happens that Harnessing Ruin marks the point where the quality fell down the shitter.

Harnessing Ruin and Shadows was a bit of a lull period for them, but I thought they really brought it back with Majesty. Slightly more streamlined approach to songwriting without losing the characteristic flavor of Vigna's riffs.

Out of curiosity, what what the specific Immolation song you were comparing to Behemoth? I don't think you mentioned that. Either that or you're insinuating that all of modern Immolation's songs have identical songwriting patterns...

I don't have the new album in front of me (I already deleted it from my hard drive), but a whole lot of the songs from it conform to the basic pattern pretty well. That "solo on entrance to the bridge to cover up the entirely random riff transition" thing in particular -- they started doing that shit on Majesty and Decay (which is where things went from "sorta bad" to "horrible") (go listen to "The Purge" for a really fucking obvious example of it), and it's present in force on Atonement. Go listen to their old albums -- they weren't using the solos as a cheap cover-up to hide bad transitions in those days.

Solos or not, they've always had pretty jarring transitions since at least as far back as Here in After, that's what makes them so consistently engaging even in their weaker moments. They always jump between riffs in really strange ways, and there are plenty of those moments (without solos) on Atonement. I guess you'd just rather hear a bad transition clearly rather than have a solo overtop of it?

Old Immolation easily beats anything the band has done post-Unholy Cult, but with that being said I've grown a fond appreciation for all their albums. Even the Shalaty ones, and I've shat on his performance more than twice because Alex Hernandex is to my view unbeatable in his performance and Craig was out of this world in how he did drumming patterns. I'm also a Behemoth fan, yes, and even though I get your point of copy-pasting the musical theory from one band to the other I do have to ask; aside from that were the fuck are those two bands similar in sound?!

Now I'm not trying to be blunt here, but do you honestly believe that all that's needed for bands to be alike is using the same musical theory instead of, you know, sounding alike? Because they don't, and I'm not deaf, and it's clinically proven that I can hear better than the average. And I have a good sound system. I could go on.

Anyway, Atonement is sounding pretty good so far, even though it's not bringing anything new per se it does see the band trying some slightly different dynamics. Calling it Majesty pt.2 is probably as much right as wrong since it does sound like a logical continuation to that album, but at the same time I do hear a throwback to the early years. Maybe it's just me, but then again I though Majesty was the closest the band has gotten to Here In After in terms of style, though it's nowhere near to being as twisted as that one is (but then again what is?!). I think it's safe to say that I'll have to fork out the cash to buy it, but at the same time I can understand people disliking the band's output during the past decade. I did too for years and then all of a sudden I have them all. Go figure. It's fucking Immolation and it sounds like fucking Immolation.

It makes more sense to compare bands based on their songwriting than it does to compare them based on timbral factors that could easily be changed by going to another studio.

I highly doubt even the best of producers could make Vigna's riffs sound like Nergal with the right studio tweaking.

I am not that familiar with a lot of their stuff but this is pretty fun so far. Just no nonsense death metal kicks in the face on every song.

It's really good, I've listened to it probably over 30 times by now.

I like a lot more than Kingdom of Conspiracy. More bite in the production (especially drums), and the songs are both catchy and epic.

While I think nothing can beat Close to a World Below, everything they've done is top-notch. As for this one, I've enjoyed pretty much all I've heard. I'm more into modern death metal these days but Immolation is one of the old school DM bands I keep returning to.

I feel like some of the songs were a bit rushed as far as the writing is concerned, but I'm really enjoying this. Probably the best sound Immolation has had in a while.

I can't listen to this album without being reminded of Here in After, Unholy Cult, Harnessing Ruin, Majesty, and Kingdom, which is good. This is a good, complete Immolation album, and even IF you consider Kingdom a flop, which I don't, Majesty and Providence were top notch, as is Atonement so far.

In comparison to Kingdom of Conspiracy, I really like the chuggy bits and heavier & more powerful guitar sound. There's the occasional throwback to Unholy Cult style chord-based riffing, which is one of my favourite things Bob Vigna does, but unlike back then, they never really indulge in those lengthy passages, and those parts all seem to end before their time. Clearly they wanted to keep things a bit shorter. There's also something new that I haven't heard from Immolation before - I think it was Lower that had riffs that sounded almost power metal influenced. Overall, the album is less furious and intense, but the songwriting is also more cohesive.

Maybe not so unexpectedly, the return-to-roots talks were exaggerated, but this is another very strong album, and I have no complaints. Fostering the Divide is my favourite, so far.

It kinda reassures me that I'm not the only one who thinks New Immolation and Behemoth sound retarded. It's like they're both hiding a lack of inspiration with the same "melancholic", "desolate" riffs and that old "crushing", "pounding" production. Well, when I listen to "Close to a world" the occasional pounding isn't there for show; it is there because the songs truly need it.

As for the new record all I can this far, is that once again the drummer sounds like he's filling in for a friend or something. How does that compare with the surgical extremism of Alex Hernandez or the otherworldly density of Craig Smilowski? I'm no music specialist but I have a gut feeling that Steve makes plenty of FORMAL mistakes. It's like he drops his beats a few milliseconds too early. A good example would be the intro of "Harnessing ruin" where he sounds so messy.

The intro to Harnessing Ruin isn't messy. If that level of imprecision bothers you in drumming of that complexity, I wonder what your thoughts are on drummers like Nicko McBrain and Bill Ward. It's alright if Shalaty's drumming rubs you the wrong way, but that seems like a really weird thing to complain about, especially in comparison to Immolation's former drummers. I couldn't be happier about the way some drummers can make the song's rhythm breathe while maintaining a perfect backbone for the band, and I wish I could hear more of that on these newer records. Formal mistakes? How about feeling and groove?

I really liked Hernandez' unrelenting hurricane of intensity, as well as his excellent taste for cymbal licks (Father, You're Not a Father), but I find Shalaty's drumming to be much more precise, although it's less aggressive. I really don't think Smilowski is in the same league as those two.

The complaint that Immolation's songwriting doesn't have the same intensity and aggression as before is probably valid, but considering how similar Vigna's riffing has stayed all these years, it makes one wonder if the complainer was much of a fan in the first place.