God Dethroned - The Toxic Touch Review
by Matt Hensch
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I always find it interesting when a band mixes up their material by changing their musical style. It's important for a band try out new ideas and exercise different forms of music because it allows the band to plant new seeds of innovation while maintaining their trademark frontiers. God Dethroned have recently gone through this phase by switching their music into something completely unpredictable. Rather then a standard death metal album, God Dethroned have adopted strong amounts of groove riffs and melody to create "The Toxic Touch."
The music on "The Toxic Touch" isn't like anything I would have ever expected from this band. The biggest change this band has made since their last album is the guitar work. The riffing on "The Toxic Touch" has God Dethroned doing a full-blown melodic death attack. "The Lair Of The White Worm" had God Dethroned using just a tad of melody in their riffs, but the melodic attributes now dominate this album. Along with the melodic riffs, the use of groove riffs are used fairly often on this album. Tracks like "Faithless" and "Hating Life" possess a quasi-Pantera riffing style. This unique groove style is defiantly something interesting, especially when considering God Dethroned's older material and how this style was nonexistent. "The Toxic Touch" has some shockers I never thought God Dethroned would try. The two songs that still manage to surprise me with each listen are the atmospheric "Typhoid Mary" and the progressive instrumental "Away From Emptiness", which is filled with clean guitars. That's right, God Dethroned have used clean guitars! These two songs, especially "Away From Emptiness," are very fun to listen to and show a different side of God Dethroned.
Unlike any previous release by God Dethroned, this album has almost no blastbeats. The blastbeat is obviously an important piece of any death metal band, but because of God Dethroned's musical evolution, the blast beat is hardly used. Drummer Arien Van Weesenbeek still manages to stay technical while drumming, but I believe this new drumming approach restricts his talent. Arien can easily do so much more with his drumming. If his drumming was properly used, "The Toxic Touch" would be much more exciting.
Remember the Satanic tales and anti-Christian rants singer Henri Sattler spat out on previous albums? Well, you can forget about them, because these lyrical topics are nowhere to found on "The Toxic Touch." Instead of the Satanic themes, the lyrical topics now revolve around personal themed issues. "Hating Life" is a nice, suicidal downer while tracks like "The Day You Died" and "Macabre World" focus around similar depressive subjects.
"The Toxic Touch" is defiantly an interesting album. I'm not sure how hardcore God Dethroned fans will react after hearing this, but I thought it was decent. Check it this one if you're looking for something different.
CD Info and Links
God Dethroned - The Toxic Touch Label:Metal Blade
Rating:8.4
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