Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 5/5/2017
Label: Metal Blade
If you’re a
longtime fan like me, this album is everything you’d want and then some. ‘The
World Ablaze’ is all of the best elements of the God Dethroned’s entire
discography amalgamated into a single album.
‘The World Ablaze’ CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. A Call to Arms
2. Annihilation Crusade
3. The World Ablaze
4. On the Wrong Side of the Wire
5. Close to Victory
6. Konigsberg
7. Escape Across the Ice (The White Army)
8. Breathing Through Blood
9. Messina Ridge
10. The 11th Hour
The Review:
Please bear with me as I do this. I know reviews
should never center around the person writing them, and as such, this won’t be
a proper review. I will definitely get to the music, but with the album having
already been out for more than a month now, and given other circumstances I’ll
get into shortly; I want to explain why this album has the deep resonance with
me that it does.
For metal fans over a certain age, getting turned
on to a band via compilations was a pretty common occurrence. In this case, the
compilation in question ‘Metal Blade’s ‘Deathmeister’
compilation, released in 1998. This comp was my first exposure to bands like Dark Funeral,
Defleshed,
Lord Belial
and more, and all are bands I still listen to regularly.
The God Dethroned song featured on that comp was
the title track from 1997’s classic ‘The
Grand Grimoire’. It was absolutely ferocious. Combining Floridian death
metal’s love for blazing, Slayer-loving tremolo with European
death metal’s remarkable knack for melody, God Dethroned had a depth and range that I
hadn’t really heard from a death metal band at that point. Before too long, the
cassette I’d used to dub the comp for my Walkman was worn and warped from
overuse, and God Dethroned was a big
part of why that happened.
I’m grateful to have seen God Dethroned live
on the ‘Death Metal Massacre 2000’
tour with Cannibal Corpse. Their set included songs from
‘The Grand Grimoire’ as well as
their then new album ‘Bloody Blasphemy’.
But it’s what happened prior to this show that leads me to essentially make
this review about my experience and history with the band.
At the time of the show, I hadn’t yet turned 18
and didn’t have a car. My dad took me to the show and, as he often did, made
sure to threaten my utter embarrassment at every turn by sticking around after
dropping me off. He liked some metal, but only at a very surface, mainstream
level. While I was waiting in line, he went to walk around and have a smoke.
When he returned he explained that he’d happened to have a very quick chat with
someone from one of the bands. That person turned out to be Henri from God Dethroned.
I can’t remember exactly what he said or what they
talked about, other than him asking about what the name meant, and I remember
feeling the earth crumbling beneath me and dread pounding through every vein in
my body. But, to my surprise, my dad seemed to be happy with how the
conversation went and even opted to stick around and listen to what he could
from outside once the show started. From that point forward, God Dethroned
was sort of his reference point for anything else I listened to:
“Oh,
these guys aren’t as fast as God Dethroned.”
“This
singer doesn’t have a powerful scream like the guy in God Dethroned.”
Every once in a while, even more than 15 years
later, he’d ask about the band and what they were up to. He’d always bring them
up as a way to mention him getting to talk to Henri. He was never one to pass
up an opportunity to talk about something that made him sound cool, even if
he’d talked about it before. As luck would have it, Dad had asked about God Dethroned in April, and I told him about the upcoming
album, ‘The World Ablaze’, which was
all he needed to launch into a conversation we’ve had dozens of times over the
last 17 years.
At the end of May, my dad died of a heart attack
brought on by long term health problems at the age of 64. At first, I was
hesitant to listen to this album, for obvious reasons. But as time passed my
apprehension gave way to something like warm nostalgia. As I went back and
listened to the band’s earlier albums, I smiled to myself. I imagined the site
of my painfully uncool dad talking to Henri, one of the great death metal
vocalists of all time. What an absurd couple of minutes that must have been.
I know nothing about the afterlife, and I doubt
there’s one at all. But if there is, I’ll be glad to tell him how good this
album was, just to give him a reason to tell that old story again.
When I finally listened to ‘The World Ablaze’ for the first time since my dad’s death, that
warm feeling washed over me, just as it had with the early albums. While I’ve
enjoyed everything the band have put out—to varying degrees—the albums released
after ‘Into The Lungs Of Hell’ felt
like they were missing something. A minor “something”, but something
nonetheless. With this album, they’ve gained all of it back in a big fucking
way.
God Dethroned is at their best when they keep
a balance between riveting viciousness and gut-wrenching melody, and this album
hits both of these touchstones as well as one could hope. ‘The World Ablaze’ is an inspired work from a band at a new creative
peak. All of the raw emotional energy of ‘The
Grand Grimoire’ and ‘Bloody
Blasphemy’ are present and strong. The infernal catchiness of ‘Ravenous’ and the added heft and sonic
power of the band’s mid 2000s material is here as well, and it’s been improved
after the band’s long break between albums.
If you’re a longtime fan like me, this album is
everything you’d want and then some. ‘The
World Ablaze’ is all of the best elements of the God Dethroned’s
entire discography amalgamated into a single album. There’s a personal
connection I have to this album that probably won’t exist for other people, but
this is an album that stands proudly on its own musical merits.
FFO: Necrophobic, Behemoth, Hail of Bullets, Unleashed
