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Deicide > To Hell with God > Reviews > Metallideath
Deicide - To Hell with God

A definite improvement - 94%

Metallideath, February 18th, 2011

Hmm, considering how bad I thought "Till Death Do Us Part" was, I have to say this was a big improvement, however, I dont think it can top off The Stench of Redemption. This album here, I can refer to as my second favorite Deicide album. This just never gets old compared to Till Death Do Us Part which to me gets old in about 15 minutes. This album now has the title track take over Homage for Satan as my favorite Deicide song, not as the heaviest, but definitely my favorite. But I've compared enough, the good part here is that with this record, Deicide did bring some new stuff to the table, just like on Till Death Do Us Part, but it failed, here, it was a success. The guitar tone was shifted from the previous album to here, but here it isn't really that annoying as it was on the last record. One other new thing I found different was the vocals, Benton probably from having two testicles on Till Death Do Us Part, to probably three testicles on this record, he sounded much more pissed off on this album, and that only makes me love it more. Another thing I found different, was that in general, Deicide has gotten faster and more melodic over the years, and here it tops off. Much more tremolo picking and blast beat drumming yet more guitar echoing bass lines. But allow me to jump into the details more.

A general overview I'd give to this record is, fairly high-pitched yet still heavy guitar parts, guitar echoing and barely audible bass lines, extremely angry but absolutely lovable vocals, blast beat drumming, and your typical religion bashing lyrics, with an overall evil, "dont fuck with me", and very heavy sound.

Okay, like I said before there were some elements from The Stench of Redemption and Till Death Do Us Part that were drifted over to here, some that annoy me, some that are just fine. There were also new elements put in here that I loved. For one as I've said, Benton I'm guessing probably grew another testicle judging by his voice on this record. On this record I just loved the vocals, it sounded like he really was pissed off, which is one thing that death metal is supposed to be about, anger. It seems they have tweaked their guitar tone a slight bit better from the last record, but it still doesn't beat the guitar tone on Stench of Redemption.

As far as everyone's performance on the album went, I have to start with the vocals. Do I need to mention it again, Glen is either an amazing voice actor and able to much more anger behind his vocals now or really was pissed off at something when he recorded his vocals. Considering how they even threw in a few cuss words in their lyrics along with Glen's red hot tempered growl is enough to probably scare someone moreso than every haunted house in the world could do combined. Another good part as far as the vocals go, it wasn't as much screaming oriented compared to the last two albums, that's definitely a step up, because even though I like screamed vocals, it can be easily overdone on a death metal album. Shifting over to the guitar parts, they were over all probably a 9/10 performance. I wouldn't change the guitar tone to exactly what they did on Stench of Redemption, but they could still make the distortion on the guitars heavier than they did here. I see Ralph and Jack have no signs of losing any of their glory as of yet. The solos could have gone a bit longer, but it still is satisfying and it isn't a huge deal. As far as the bass lines go, they are audible to the slightest, which is good, but as I said before, they pretty much just echo the rhythm guitarist 99% of the time. Again, I'm not asking for bass solos, on a death metal album, most definitely not, but what I am asking is that they make the bass go down a different path of notes compared to the guitars a few more times. The drumming wasn't really that special except for one thing, it was fast. Fast drums are something I do enjoy listening to and even if they aren't that fast, I dont ever expect them to stand out as much as on Metallica's "Sad but True", but their drummer did get a few mini little drum solos and they didn't throw him under the school bus to any extent.

As far as the best track of the album, that would likely go to the album's title track with, How Can Call Yourself a God, Save Your, Witness of Death, Into the Darkness You Go, and Servant of the Enemy all trailing not too far behind the title track. A definite positive is that I dont ever feel the need to want to skip down to my favorite tracks. The entire album was made up of 10 extremely enjoyable songs, though some are however, better than others. There was no bad song on here that should be considered a disgrace to the album. The song lengths were kept at a very good moderation and were although a bit short, it still isn't that big of a deal. Also, I have to compliment, very nice cover art.

As much praise as I offer for this record, I do have to say it wasn't exactly perfect. As I may have mentioned, I'm not a huge fan of "Death to Jesus" being brought up in every song. I'm not fond of any religion but it does get slightly disturbing and sometimes irritating after a while. And also, as I said before, bass lines echoing the rhythm guitar annoy the fuck out of me.

Overall, a definite buy, download, however you want to get it. It's well worth it.