Label - Nuclear Blast
Release Date - 18 February 2022
Words- Joey
The question of what is considered too long in regard to album length has been thrown around a lot recently; what is too long? Forty-five minutes? An hour? That depends on your attention span, and whether the band can keep your interest for that long. So, can Immolation really justify an album with fifteen tracks of unfiltered death metal?
Granted, for fans outside of the DM genre, this could seem daunting to consume in one sitting. However, those who have an expansive taste in music will find plenty here to keep them engaged. 'Act of God', the 11th album from Immolation, is mixed with plenty of skull crushing riffs to appease the hardened extreme music fans, while at the same time has plenty of variation in their songs to lure in the more adventurous fans.
Kicking off with the intro, 'Abandoned' eases one into the album until the following title track gives a lesson to all aspiring bands in how to write an instant DM classic, with brutally executed guttural vocals, lashings of double bass rolls and unforgiving riffs. What more could one want?
Well, luckily there is a lot more on this album than just full throttle, one hundred mph head-fuckery. There are slower songs ('And the Flames Wept'), explosive ones ('Apostle') and wonderful technical guitar work all over this release.
Production wise, the album is everything you would expect from a band in 2022. The polished feel has it sounding absolutely massive, similar to most bands in this day and age. Everything is full up in the mix, no muddied sounds here compared to the earlier records in the DM scene. The vocals, as grotesque and powerful as they are, sit perfectly balanced on the album and take nothing away from the rest of the members' precise and crushing delivery.
'Noose of Thorns' may be the album high point. A big stomping riff opens the track before Steve Shalatay caresses his kit with fills that just sound so luscious. Think in the vein of Obituary's 'Redneck Stomp', but with Immolation's stylings. This song absolutely lulls you into thinking it could be one of the slower tracks, but no dice. It erupts with such fire and grimace. Bassist and vocalist Ross Dolan is on top form here, spewing the lyrics like one of those dinosaurs from Jurassic Park that spits in your face.
'Blooded' really is Immolation at their finest. At times slow and pounding, at others it morphs into a frantic non-stop blast beat roller coaster, but not before some face-melting solos. 'Derelict of Spirit' even throws in some black metal style guitar work which only makes the album even more expansive. Guitarist Robert Vigna puts in a stellar performance on this album. The solos are wonderfully crafted and there is no shortage of riffs in his armoury.
The album artwork, by Eliran Kantor, is a lot darker compared to their previous work. Ross comments “We wanted this cover to feel much darker; more melancholy and hopeless. The music has always been very dark, and a lot of Kantor’s work had the feeling that we were going for; the semi surreal colliding with a classic, almost renaissance feel,” Well, job done as this cover compliments the music as well as a nice bottle of Italian red with a fine steak.
The more the album runs, the better it gets. As previously stated, fifteen tracks seems like a lot for this style of music but, the more the album goes on the less you want it to finish. It's hard to think that there will be another DM album released this year that will better 'Acts of God'. However, if that were to be proved wrong, then it would have to be one hell of an album to top this.
9/10
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