4) “Walk With The Devil In Dreams You Behold”
[youtube]https://youtu.be/UBHzKupfdDc[/youtube]
“Walk With The Devil In Dreams You Behold” threw me for a loop the first time I heard it. It boasts some of the band’s most melodic riffing, and I remember hearing it for the right after the record came out as I was driving home from a shift throwing boxes at a FedEx hub. I was pretty taken aback by how lush and thick the guitar harmonies were, and it didn’t sit too well with me. At the time, I gravitated more towards “Homage For Satan.” In the years since then, though, this has actually become my favorite track from The Stench of Redemption. I loved Scars of The Crucifix, but that album had to be more of a statement than anything else: “Yes, we can bounce back from In Torment, and no, we’re not finished.” They succeeded with that, but it didn’t leave a lot of room for striking out into new territory. This track, as well as “The Lord’s Sedition,” are a couple of examples of a death metal band trying some new tricks and achieving success in unexpected places. Great song.
5) “Go Now Your Lord Is Dead”
[youtube]https://youtu.be/N0NA-8Zo2h8[/youtube]
One minute, fifty-five seconds, zero problems. If I sit here and rack my brain to try and come up with a happy, upbeat Deicide song, I can’t really think of anything; it’s a fuckin’ antireligious death metal band led by a guy with an inverted cross seared into the flesh of his forehead. But that doesn’t mean all songs are equally angry. “Go Now Your Lord Is Dead” is a relentless, short blast of some of the most seething, furious shit Deicide ever put to tape. And even though it’s probably their shorted number, it’s got just as much kick as any of their longer ones. It’d be cool to see them try and compress a few songs down into this length sometime in the future.
6) “Let It Be Done”
[youtube]https://youtu.be/YU2Ch4sjRbo[/youtube]
Everybody hates In Torment In Hell. The band themselves have admitted it was nothing more than a contractual obligation, thrown together in minutes on a shoestring budget by a group of guys who were at the end of their rope with their record deal and with each other. But, I’m a completist, man… I’ve gotta have all the records from my favorite bands, and if I like a band enough, I can stay objective about the quality of a shitty release, but still find something to dig about it. I’ll admit that doing that with this album is difficult; everything about it is haphazard, slipshod, lazy and rushed. But “Let It Be Done” and the title track still make their way into my Deicide gym playlists from time to time. That opening riff sounds like some of the more solid material from Insineratehymn and Serpents of the Light, and that groove they hit just past the twenty-second mark is a total headbanger. I’m not going to try to convince you to buy this album, but if you wanna hear some under-the-radar Deicide with a bit of a mid-paced rocker twist (it sounds ridiculous to even describe a Deicide song that way), give “Let It Be Done” a try.
7) “Standing In The Flames”
[youtube]https://youtu.be/VciOwPKcZZk[/youtube]
Insineratehymn is the most needlessly shit-upon Deicide release. I get that it’s not as fast or thrashy as anything from the first three records, but neither was Serpents of The Light, and I’ve seen people shit on one while praising the other. Doesn’t make sense to me. This album is a continuation of the sound they were pushing towards on Serpents, and there are some truly crushing tracks on this record. “Standing In The Flames” has some catchy chord progression, some awesome percussion work by Asheim, and some of Benton’s more interesting post-Cross lyrical departures. He was really starting to head in a more personal direction on this record, the culmination of which I think is the lyrical material from Till Death Do Us Part. I’ve recommended this album as a gateway to Deicide for several people I’ve met who are just getting into death metal, and it’s worked every time. This is one of those examples of death metal not being super technical or fast, but still being heavy in all the right ways. Worth a shot if you’ve got the inclination. And try to listen to “Bible Basher” and not grin.
