Drink... Drink the Blood!

I consider Christ Denied to be a great example of well-executed modern brutal death metal. I mean that they make an adequate use of technical skills, without becoming just senseless dull wankery, a thing that a whole load of recent bands are doing. On the other hand, the band also incorporates brutality on their music, without falling in the sound of US bands like Brodequin, or, in worse cases, Devourment clones, that focus more on being "fucking br00tal" than on writing good riffs.

As you might have already noticed, this release is a compilation of Christ Denied's "rare" songs, those that had appeared in splits/demos/tributes and now are being put together as a compilation. The fact is that while most of these type of albums are just for die-hard fans or avid collectors, this one might be useful as a great introduction into this band. If you also consider that their first (and to date, the only) Christ Denied album is nowadays really hard to find, this is the best way to discover the band and their work.

The compilation shows the development the band's sound has had, from their early days when they played raw and brutal, yet with a thrashy feeling death metal, to the recent more technical focused, yet still incredibly brutal death metal.

The thing starts off with the songs taken from the split with Bastards Saints. These are my favorites on the whole release. They show a more mature and riff oriented side of Christ Denied. The highlight is, of course, Dave fucking Rotten. It's hard for me to believe that a human being is capable of doing vocals the way Rotten does. Growls and squeals blend together in an excelent way. The squeals are not annoying, and Rotten does not abuse of them. The riffing is quite unique. There are some melodic bits at times, not in the sense of Gothenburg "death" metal, but rather in the early Kataklysm vein (it's the only example I can think about). There are some thrashy riffs at times, like in Festerchrist. The drum programming is pretty good. Blastbeats are good, but abusing with the use of them is really fucking annoying, and it seems that David Nigger (lol) knows that. The patterns are really varied, and they hardly get boring.

Then, the songs from the split with Aborted come in. These songs are more brutal than the previous ones, yet not falling in the realm of senseless and annoying brutality. The riffing is what makes this band way better than the competition. Again, the vocal delivery is superb and the drum programming is really good.

Then comes an Infernal Majesty cover, intended to be included in a tribute album of the aforementioned band, that was finally discarded. The thrash influence is highly present here, just like in the cover of Onslaught 'Angels of Death' included in their debut album. The song is greatly executed, and it's better than the previous version of the same cover, recorded a few years before.

Finally, the songs from the split with the legendary Haemorrhage close this compilation. These ones show the rawer side of Christ Denied, with a chaotic production and a high dose of brutality. At times is so chaotic that it becomes a bit hard to get what is going on, and that's the only flaw I can find on this. But hey, a 1995 demo by a new band without support from a record label can hardly get a good production. The cover of Infernal Majesty included here is not as good as the one they recorded a few years later, but it's still good.

So, if you want some good death metal, or you like either Avulsed or Christ Denied, you definitely should check this out.