Label: Reigning Phoenix Music
Date: April 26th, 2024
Let me start by stating that I rather like the cover artwork. As for the ethical conundrum, there’s the comment section on the Facebook post, so you can let it rip. I’m told Facebook favors the posts with multitude of comments, so it can only help grow Abaddon Magazine’s audience and visibility online.
When it comes to audio contents of “Banished by Sin”, I’m afraid I don’t have many compliments to hand out. Basically, Deicide has published another Deicide album, containing everything that made the band one hell of a pioneering force in brutality. However, the album sounds worn out, with hardly a moment worthy of special mentioning. It sounds like they were forced to release something, so the album is left unrefined, unchecked and unpolished. And I’m talking about compositional ideas, not the production which is, expectedly, spotless. The craftsmanship seems to be done by the book, implementing the swarming guitars which often dives into thrash and even black metal, dynamic drumming that is likely the best feature of “Banished by Sin” and that unrelenting voice of Mr. Benton that doesn’t let slip. It’s all there so that the army of fans cannot complain about Deicide taking things in unexpected directions. Pure death metal, brutal, aggressive, with just about enough dark melody. Florida, 1990s, a textbook example of how you do it.
Still, the album is missing the massively memorable songs. It might be too much to expect a renewal of the zest on display with “Lunatic of God’s Creation”, “Once Upon the Cross” or “Scars of the Crucifix”, but there’s just too few real moving moments here. Unless you just need to bang the dust off your head and need just a little spark to get going. Me, I found a cool, thrashy opening to “From Unknown Heights You Shall Fall” to be somewhat appealing, “Sever the Tongue” an honorable mention and the title track as the one that could be kept close to the timeless classics of Deicide. For a band of this stature, that’s nowhere near what the fans waited for six long years. Particularly after a full-scale assault that was “Overtures of Blasphemy” which came fairly close to reviving the sentiment of the legendary Deicide releases.
Then again, the predecessor to “Banished by Sin” is the proof that Deicide haven’t lost their touch, even if they let this album escape their blasphemous imagination. There’s no need to panic, though. This album is far from bad, it’s just not what you’d expect from such a death metal powerhouse. You can still feast on this beast, but a few spins would likely suffice. For more, please refer to the nineties or the first half of 2000s.
