God Dethroned – Under the Sign of the Iron Cross (2010)

With two new additions to the band’s line-up since their devastating last release “Passiondale”, God Dethroned returns with their crushing sound with “Under the Sign of the Iron Cross”. Showing no signs of slowing down, the band’s latest release is both crushing and relentless with some monumental Death Metal perfect for some neck-breaking moshing.

The addition of Danny Tunker on guitars and Mike van der Plicht on drums keeps the band as brutal as every with that slight melodic edge that separates them from the rest. For over 35 minutes, God Dethroned rips through 9 tracks of crushing music that will leave you craving for more.

After the epic introduction (“The Declaration of War”), the band quickly moves into fast-paced territory with “Storm of Steel”. This track is a relentless aural assault that showcases what the album is all about: crushing riffing and massive drumming, with some melodic aspects mixed in-between the brutality of the band’s sound. In a very fast-paced ‘traditional’ Death Metal fashion, the band keeps things very brutal in the first 4 tracks.

With the album titled song, the band opens with more melodic lines creating a different atmosphere, mixing in brutal sections with melodic passages to perfection. In this track we also get a taste of some clean vocals that will sneak up on you, but are very melodic and actually sound very well incorporated only to finish the song with a nice keyboard outro. The melodic sections close to the second halves of the songs “Chaos Reigns at Dawn”, “Through Byzantine Hemispheres”, and “The Red Baron” gives these songs that extra push to make them easily differentiated for the rest of the songs on this album.

The nicest surprise in “Under the Sign of the Iron Cross” comes in with the name of “On Fields of Death & Desolation”, a very Melodic Death Metal sounding song that for almost the first two minutes will have you wondering if this is still the same band. With such a melodic piece, we can easily see the band’s abilities at crafting catchy and crushing songs. God Dethroned is more than just a very brutal band, and the second half of this album clearly makes this case.

In overall, we think that “Under the Sign of the Iron Cross”, is another step forward for God Dethroned. The band’s sound is getting more and more refined with every release and they show that they are not afraid of experimenting on small parts of their songs. Both the drumming and the guitars are top notch in this release, and aided by a very well balanced production, “Under the Sign of the Iron Cross” is probably one of the most solid albums the band has released to date.

Release: November 23rd, 2010

Country: Netherlands