Entry 985 - God Dethroned - Under the Sign of the Iron Cross

Style: Melodic death metal

Primary Emotions/Themes: A brutal retelling of World War 1

Thoughts: "Human Sacrifice, On enemy soil, In the grip of rage, On the brink of death" 

"The shelling remains relentless, Human remains hanging in the tree branches, Fighting in the fortified graveyards, All must die - the killing is faceless"

"The guns ahead fall silent, Defenders have been finished off, The ground littered with corpses, Chaos reigns at dawn"

"Masses of men collide, In a fight over dead land, The puppets on the front line, Their ignorance is used for a lost cause"

Brutal. A word that is often used to describe music in the heavier spectrum. It's affixed to many different genres but most typically death metal. Most often this is used to describe music, but sometimes it is more apt for the lyrics of the music. This is absolutely the case of God Dethroned's Under the Sign of the Iron Cross. 

The music is very much a continuation of Passiondale, if maybe a bit more intense. The "return to the roots" mentality served the band well in the previous album, and the follow up is just as much the beneficiary of the rejuvenation. 

The riffs go hard, so much so that the music is likely classified as "death metal with melody" rather than "melodic death metal." That's a very important distinction in my vernacular - it means that the music is inherently death metal that has a melodic edge rather than Iron Maiden with harsh vocals.

The music's intensity is matched by the intensity of the lyrics, the two come together to create one of the better entries into the death metal with melody field in quite some time. As good as Passiondale was, Under the Sign of the Iron Cross ups the ante in every way. The blasting is more focused, the riffs exude more violence, the vocals are deeper and are dripping with vitriol, the melodic portions are no less intense than the death metal parts, it's a complete package.

God Dethroned lost me for a long time, but with these two albums they brought me right back. These pick up exactly where the early albums left off and carry that battle standard like few bands ever have.