Brand of Sacrifice
God Hand

Believe it or not, deathcore is having a pretty good year in 2019: Enterprise Earth, When Plagues Collide, Ingested, Angelmaker, Organectomy (though arguably more slam) have dropped solid releases and once genre kings Whitechapel, delivered a return to form with powerfully introspective The Valley, with Carnifex, Shadow of Intent and Thy Art is Murder still to come.

In the mix is the debut full length from Brand of Sacrifice, who got deathcore fans excited with last year’s The Interstice EP, and on God Hand deliver a eclectic take on deathcore with an array of programming, synths, atmospherics and other adventurous elements added to some pretty impressive, thunderous deathcore.

Now, we aren’t talking Arsonists Get All The Girls levels of programming silliness, but certainly in the same ballpark, (maybe also Born of Osiris?) with lots of squeaks and squawks amid the riffage, but never quite as quirky and dealing with more serious themes. After lovely atmospheric opener “Begin”, we get treated to 7 short sharp songs and two interludes of top notch deathcore. Vocalist Kyle Anderson has the requisite deep inhaled growl and screams, and the balance between blasts, squeals and breakdowns is perfect, and when they do drop a deathcore breakdown, its usually pretty good as heard on early tracks “Divinity” and Born of Osiris-like “Fortress” and “The Branded” show. But as the album goes on, you can hear that the band has a sneaky good song writing ability. With tracks like “Charlotte” and “Claw Marks” (first use of a Sitar in Deahore?) and “Beast of Darkness”  as well as two interludes “Hill of Swords” and “After Image” , Brand of Sacrifice show they are a little more than just blasts and breakdowns.

While Brand of Sacrifice might be one of the more promising new young Deathcore acts, I’m sure Unique Leader’s brutal/tech death fanbase is a little alarmed at the recent releases that take a a more core direction ( this, Distant, Bound In Fear). But fear not , the Disentomb album, The Decaying Light, is an absolute monster death metal album and will more than make up for it.

[Visit the band's website]
Written by Erik T
July 26th, 2019

Comments

Leave a Reply

Privacy notice: When you submit a comment, your creditentials, message and IP address will be logged. A cookie will also be created on your browser with your chosen name and email, so that you do not need to type them again to post a new comment. All post and details will also go through an automatic spam check via Akismet's servers and need to be manually approved (so don't wonder about the delay). We purge our logs from your meta-data at frequent intervals.

  • Furze - Cosmic Stimulation of Dark Fantasies
  • Opus Irae - Into the Endless Night
  • Rotpit - Long Live the Rot
  • A La Carte - Born To Entertain
  • Mörk Gryning - Fasornas Tid
  • Yoth Iria - Blazing Inferno
  • Suidakra - Darkanakrad
  • Chaos Invocation - Wherever We Roam....
  • Ad Vitam Infernal - Le ballet des anges
  • Thy Catafalque - XII: A gyönyörű álmok ezután jönnek (Twelve: The Beautiful Dreams Are Yet to Come)
  • Aara - Eiger
  • Mammoth Grinder - Undying Spectral Resonance EP
  • Wretched Fate - Incineration of the Pious EP
  • Kaivs - After the Flesh
  • Witnesses - Joy