Year: 2024
Label: Hells Headbangers Records
Rating: 8,3 / 10
The honored US band DECEASED turned 40 last year! If you don't take into account their frenzied, aggressive demos from the 80s, DECEASEDhas always disappointed me very much. From the very first album, they were swept into very melodic Death/Thrash Metal, which they play to this day. For the horror themes that DECEASED use, it doesn't sound very appropriate. Metal with a touch of extremity, so to speak. It feels like these guys are more into punk, hardcore and heavy metal. There was also a very sad OCTOBER 31 side project, pretty similar to DECEASED, but with an even lighter sound, and I'm glad it was closed.
Of course, I hadn't even planned to listen to “Children Of The Morgue", but somehow the title track from this album reached my ears... and it turned out to be fucking awesome!!! It's worth buying a CD for the sake of it alone, and I'm not exaggerating. If in our time it is still possible to write a punchy metal superhit (and not a radio-friendly one, since it is more than 7,5 minutes long), then this is it. But the rest of the are almost just as good. They impress with their energy and sound. I specifically compared it to the previous couple of albums: apart from the sound, nothing has changed dramatically. But DECEASED did something with their style that finally made it “click.” Perhaps they finally managed to balance the skillful guitar leads with real old-school trash, rather than the ”compromise" version they used to play.
One way or another, everything is working now. With this refined sound, DECEASED's ability to make mini spectacles out of their songs is be revealed in a new way. If a song, say, makes a transition from ominous prowling to fast guitar racing, it's not just for the sake of the dynamics, but above all because something similar is happening in the lyrics right now. For example, a freshly dug corpse suddenly came to live and chased after the heroes of the song, or something like that. This is a very successful creative technique from the realm of traditional metal - unfortunately, almost forgotten as of today. Do you remember how brilliantly it worked in "Раскачаем этот мир" of АРИЯ? DECEASED answer to that with their "The Grave Digger". That's why I recommend the album above all to fans of proper, dynamic Heavy Metal with fiery guitars!
