Excommunicated have been around for 8 years and in that time, released a comp in 2011 and their debut full-length in 2011 Skeleton Key.  After quite some time Chad Kelly said F-this, I cannot continue to keep eating po-boys all the time, in Louisiana, let’s put  something out.  Putting down the huge sandwiches, Chad picked up the mic again.  You got, Bruno Muenzler on bass, Mike Heller on drums, Jonathan Joubert and Jason McIntyre on guitar.  A conglomeration of members from Suture, Voracious Scourge, Azure Emote-I could go on, a lot of killer acts!

Death Devout is a covers album, with a total of 16 songs with some obscure covers, but nonetheless very cool.  The Samhain cover is neat.  The Morgoth cover of “Body Count” sounds quite excellent.  Chad doing a spot on impression of Marc Grewe.  It’s quite amazing.  What do I always say about covers???  Make them your own and Excommunicated does just that.  They throw in a vicious blast beat, which was never on the original song and it really is done well.  Paying great respect to classic song, but also mixing things up.  The Cannibal Corpse cover of “Edible Autopsy” is amazing and this happens to be my favorite song off of Eaten Back to Life.  The band captures the essence and power of this track.  The cymbals are a bit loud on this song.  Regardless, the mix is spot on with the bass guitar and guitar work.  Again Excommunicated mix up some blast beats, which were never on the original.  How does Chad Kelly do these spot on impressions???  He sounds like Barnes-it’s truly freaky.  The monster blast beats are super freaking tight!!

Deicide’s “Lunatic of God’s Creation” comes equipped with some nice layered vocal/reverb laced vocals, sounding like Benton and again the band captures the sound, but makes it their own, by injecting intensity and class.  Guitar work is fantastic on this track and very fast picking and Heller is blasting the hell out of the drums.  “World Eater” from Bolt Thrower sounds monstrous.  Excellent mix to the song.  Nice killer fast part at the 4.20 part and the drums are done well, because this section onward tends to get a bit complicated a bit, but Excommunicated pull it off.  Again it pays true respect to one of the best death metal songs ever written.

Other highlights are Morbid Angel’s “Day of Suffering”, one of the best Morbid songs ever, easily.  Brutally fast, heavy and Chad sounding like he is harnessing David Vincent, circa ’90-bloody brilliant.  They return to Morbid Angel, Blessed are the Sick era again with the title track off that album.  Grave’s “And Here I Die…Satisfied”, is monstrously freaking heavy and will hit you like a ton of bricks over and over again.  Napalm Death’s “Inside the Torn Apart” is a bit obscure to cover.  Rather than going for a classic grind tune, Excommunicated selects a Napalm tune, during their experimental stage, but they do it pretty freaking awesome.  So there you have it. Honestly I am not a covers album fan.  When bands tack on a cover song or 2 on an album, I enjoy that.  Albums like this, when not done well, can really have the opposite effect then what they were really were intended for. Excommunicated does a remarkable job with all the covers and inject their own originality to the songs, while still being respectful to the original.  Death Devout is a real fun listen.  Great job gentlemen!!

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