Destroying Divinity - Hollow Dominion

Artist: Destroying Divinity
Release Title: Hollow Dominion
Year: 2014
Label: Lavadome Productions
Genre: Retro Death Metal
Tracklisting:
1. The Eternity Guardians
2. Burning Divine Domination
3. Scent of Death
4. Empire of Emptiness
5. Suffering Redemption
6. Defleshed Skeleton
7. Sinful Omens
8. Inner Slavery

Undoubtedly at the top of their game, Czech death metallers Destroying Divinity has cemented their stance at the top of the revivalist death metal movement years ago, and have now slain all in their wake with yet another demolishing effort. With only a four-year gap between releases to keep the creativity flowing, this crushing and devastating fourth full-length effort was released September 30, 2014 on Lavadome Productions.

Following up their devastating last release, this one manages to carry on a lot of the same formulas that made that release so special and devastating by featuring the kind of technically challenging and complex riff-work within a framework that adds a degree of atmospherics into the proceedings. There’s plenty of ravenous thrashing mixed with technically-charged rhythms that all compliment the type of fiery patterns favored by the group, where it features a wide assortment of riffing to feature that amount of ferocious work here. While this here manages to give this a quite dominant display, there’s also hints of melody featured that carries a rather impressive buffer between these charging rhythms as the band’s ability to charge forward at blistering fashions yet also manage to accompany a slight deviation or variance that actually works quite nicely in support of the more dominant challenging riff-work and blasting drum-work. That carries itself across the album to such an extent that its dynamics allow it to feature enough here which combines that amount of old-school flavor with a more modernized approach to really gel so well here that its appeal is spread out even further by being able to allow for all these different elements into an equally coherent and devastating whole. While it might be a little same-sounding as it goes along, there’s little about this one to dislike.

There’s so much to really get behind with this one that it really furthers and cements their status at the top of the pyramid here when it comes to the revivalist death metal scene that the few minute flaws are so unimportant in the grand scheme of things that this deserves as much appeal as possible with all many of death metal fans required to check this one out.

Score: 96/100

Does it sound good? Order it from here:
https://destroyingdivinity.bandcamp.com/

Destroying Divinity - Dark Future

Artist: Destroying Divinity
Release Title: Dark Future
Year: 2010
Label: Brutal Bands
Genre: Retro Death Metal
Tracklisting:
1. To Live in Gloom of the Beyond
2. At War with Two Worlds
3. Birth of Faceless Killer
4. Putrid Stench of Past
5. Undead in the Darkness
6. Cult
7. Prophecy
8. Name Written with Blood
9. Face to Face to Destiny

Further establishing their reputation, Czech death metal veterans Destroying Divinity continues to showcase a growing trend in their homeland to play early US style death metal with doses of extreme creativity and uniqueness, which is what’s continued here. The third album in their decade-long career, delivered after a six-year layoff between releases, is initially released June 25, 2011 on new-label Brutal Bands.

As is customary for the group now, this one carries along their traditional stamp of quality, old-school death metal with their exuberant mix of both US and European styles. The US variations come namely the way it thrashes away with their technical-based rhythms across bouncy guitar riffs, dynamic tempo variations and a swamp-ridden atmosphere while invoking the atmosphere and sense of dread in the imagery that’s quite eerie. This ends up delivering raging, up-tempo riffs with a slight technical bombast into brutal, tight formations that definitely offer up a sense of darkness and intensity through a blasting drum-attack and technical riff-work that remains ferocious and vicious with its’ scathing intensity which recalls its forbearers quite nicely. Alongside such tight, intense tracks, the veteran sense of knowing when to throw in a melodic line or lead-work is mixed in, putting this in a rather fine league where it blasts away furiously before injecting a slower tempo or augmenting the intensity with a lighter mood through sparing use of a melodic tempo. Surprisingly, this results in somewhat bouncy and energetic rhythms than would normally be considered in such a genre as befits such a scene here, as the typical impetus is to just blast away with reckless abandon and scald all those who stand in the way, whereas here those get distracted by the melodic tones before getting scalded into oblivion and it generates a lot more favorable response when it doesn’t employ this for every track throughout as the sporadic use makes it’s surprise appearance all the more fruitful and the devastating impact of the blistering drumming and raging, brutal guitar riffs seem all the more impactful. As a side bonus, the impact against the brutal, deep gorilla growls that populate this one makes the melody more striking against such straight-laced and intense brutality. Though it can utterly dominate with this approach, it does bring up one utterly minor flaw in that it really doesn’t do a whole lot wrong beyond recycle a lot of the same riffing patterns and rhythms throughout. This can be somewhat same-sounding after a while, though the devastating and pummeling attack manages to correct it.

That it features so many enticing elements without all that many flaws is the capper on one of the most undervalued, overlooked bands in the scene and really makes this one a no-doubt inquiry for any fan of old-school death metal or the revivalist scene in particular, though it's hard to imagine anyone remotely into the genre as a whole to have a problem with this one.

Score: 94/100

Does it sound good? Order it from here:
https://destroyingdivinity.bandcamp.com/album/dark-future