Dismember "The God That Never Was" (Candlelight)
By Brian Anderson
Tuesday. Mar 21, 1:40 AM
A return to the classic sound.

Dismember will always be one of my favorite bands. I can still listen to Like an Ever Flowing Stream and get the same feeling as when its brilliant depravity tore at my senses for the first time. The EP Pieces has just as great a memory: a patch of the cover art graced my book bag all throughout high school. Indecent & Obscene showed a more melodic side of the band, but it was still one of the greats of its time. Then along came Massive Killing Capacity, which continued the sound created on the previous release but lacked the catchiness. Unfortunately, this would become a reoccurring trend for the next few releases.

Luckily, The God That Never Was is a return to the sound that made Dismember: the Scandinavian death metal style that Fred Estby and company helped to create fills this disc along with an element that makes it fresh and vibrant in today’s music scene. While it is not as dark as Like an Ever Flowing Stream, it is just as brutal with a little more of a groove on songs like “Trail of the Dead.” Estby said, “Musically we’re trying to do better with every album,” and The God That Never Was proves it. “Shadows of the Mutilated” features a death metal singalong of sorts that will have you growling “die, die” and “kill, kill” right along with vocalist Matti Kärki. The recording quality could have been better, but all in all Dismember have moved themselves back into the forefront of death metal with The God That Never Was.
www.dismember.se
www.candlelightrecordsusa.com

Brian Anderson

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