Despondency
God On Acid
6.7
While I always look forward to new releases from some of my favorite artists, I also enjoy hearing material from new bands I’ve never heard of, and then recommending them to you the faithful MetalReview reader. Germany’s Despondency is one such band, and they have captured the East Coast style of US death metal to a bludgeoning “T”. Take one part classic East Coast Death metal (Suffocation, Dehumanized, Pyrexia, Internal Bleeding, etc) dripping with a Destroy the Opposition sense of polished groove, God on Acid is a neck wrecking good time, and one of the better death metal albums I’ve heard recently.
Hardly sounding German at all, Despondency delivers a crushing stomp-a-riffic slab of death metal that’s easy on overloaded technicality, instead relying on monstrous, lumbering riffs and satisfying, but not dizzying blastbeats. The fast moments are perfectly balanced between genre fulfilling hyperspeed and choppy stop start structures that don’t come across as too busy. Vital Remains or Cannibal Corpse this isn’t, as Stefan Ilm and Mike Ernst uncoil many a riff that stays in the razor sharp mid range, rather than careen into screeching staccato abandon. Those familiar with any of the aforementioned bands should know where I’m coming from. Vocally, Konstantine Luerhring is pretty unimaginative, with a monotone (sometimes layered) lower than hell gargled style that’s too low in the mix to truly convey the standard lyrical fare, but what else are you going to do with this style? Especially burping literary landmark titles like “9mm Headfuck”, “Fucked” and “Womb of Shit”. Not exactly Sartre.
The songs contained on God on Acid are far from genre breaking or eloquent, but each of them is a satisfying slab of bruising fierce death metal in a vein that's only second to old school Swedish death metal as far as enjoyment for me. The 9 torrents of double bass laden chuggery have little character from song to song, but are consistently driving and each one is pretty much guaranteed to get ‘yer head bobbing with some furious breakdown or rumbling slowdown. The title track has possibly the album’s best groove with a massive riff over some double bass blasting; pure Suffo worship, complete with resonating bottom end notes and bass kicks. Only the reworked version of “Highest Form of Brutality 2003”, clocking in at a little over a minute leaves me a little hungry for more.
God on Acid isn’t going to change death metal , it isn’t trying to, but it is a solid, enjoyable slab of brute-core, that actually relives the classic East Coast sound better than some bands from the East Coast.
Burp.
