In Torment in Hell

Over the years I have come to the realization that Deicide is a hit or miss band, that over the decades have been on a decline. The early era is great, the mid era is decent, and the later era is simply not great, or simply boring and dull. When it comes to this album, it seems to be a forgotten one among fans and haters alike, as I don't see many people ever talk about it, and a confirmation of this is the fact this is the least reviewed album in their discography apart from the newest one. This is perhaps due to it being in the middle of a something I somewhat consider a trilogy of sorts. Out of the 7 albums with the Hoffman brothers, I consider the first 4 to be great, and the last 3 to be either good, decent, and not great. This is the good one, the one in the middle of that little trilogy.

The biggest issue with the albums in the later era, is the bad overproduced production that sounds essentially almost the same in most of the albums. The drums unnecessarilly loud, boring sounding guitars, non-existant bass, and dull uninspired vocals. However on this album, the production is still pretty good. The guitars sound a lot more raw, the drums sound nice and tight, the vocals sound pretty good , and you can even hear the bass at some parts within the songs. While the songs are not very memorable, you can tell there is still some effort being put at making enjoyable songs, and the album as a whole is pretty consistent overall good songs. The best aspect of the album is the guitar work, the riffs consist of a combination of slightly groovy mid tempo riffs, as well as fast tremolo picked riffs. These fast riffs are the highlight because they fill in the spaces, keep things entertaining and the songs moving forward, and they are even decently catchy. The fact they are more raw than the clear sound of later albums, makes everything sound more dark and evil. The drum performance is way better than in later albums too, they are fast and also controlled, the blast beats sound tight, and most importantly they sound good. Same with the vocals, they sound good because he does not sound tired, the vocals sound deep, firm, and angry, just what you expect from Deicide but here they are executed quite well, here Glen Benton does not sound like he is doing an impression of himself like he does on later albums, here he sounds like his true self.

Overall, while the album is not very memorable or amazing, it's fast, aggressive, straight to the point, and plays to the strengths of Deicide. It does not lose it's focus on trying too hard to sound evil and edgy. It reminds me of Deeds of Flesh's 2nd and 3rd album if they were less technical, brutal, and raw. As a whole Deicide is somewhar similar in some aspects to early Deeds of Flesh and other brutal death metal bands like this that focus on fast tremolo picked riffs, tight drumming, and vocals that combine low growls and high screamy yells/shrieks. Definitely an album that deserves more credit than it gets.