God Dethroned is back with album number 12, and at this point, it’s difficult to keep rewriting the same review as Henri Satler and whoever is in his band (yet another different drummer here) are so god damn consistent at this point in their career it’s silly.

After a trio of albums about WWI, Satler and co moved into politics and religion for 2020s Illuminati, ( which I didn’t review for some reason), and while the WWI theme REALLY suited God Dethroned‘s style of melodic but vicious black /death metal, the new themes were still delivered with precision and quality and that continues for the religiously themed The Judas Paradox.

You know what you are getting with God Dethroned at this point, and it would be easy to copy and paste reviews from the likes of The World Ablaze, Under the Sign of the Iron Cross, Passiondale , or even older releases like The Lair of the White Worm , which contained arguably the bands best song in “Nihilism” (Still, the band’s apex was 1997s The Grand Grimoire in my humble opinion).

The 50/50 mix of blistering blacked death metal with hints of melody on The Judas Paradox puts the band in several extreme categories, which they still cover well after well over 30 years. With tracks like the killer opening title track, “The Hanged Man”,  “The Kasmir Princess”, “Asmodeus” and “The Eye of Providence” you get the band’s more controlled moody riffs that are purer mid-paced, solo-filled melodic death metal and recall “Under A Silver Moon”.

Then with blistering numbers like the standout track “Rat Kingdom”, “The Hanged Man”, “Hubris Anorexia” and “Broken Bloodlines” (arguably the most direct, vicious song the band has delivered in years, even with the moody chorus), and sudden closer “War Machine” you get the band’s more vicious pure death metal and even black metal-hued savagery.

Every sounds exceptional; crisp, crunchy, and razor sharp and Sattler sounds as raspy as ever. My only minor issue is the album overall just sort of ranks as a middling affair in their consistently solid discography. That isn’t bad- they don’t have a single bad album, this is just an album that will sit on my shelf while I listen to some of the others listed above more regularly.  Also, personally I prefer the WWI material, over these newer themes, as the more war metal visage suited the band’s sound better.

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