Holy crappers- Acts of God is Immolation’s eleventh album.  Man, I feel like time has flown right by me.  It seems like only yesterday I was at Spark’s on Long Island, NY watching them headline once Dawn of Possession was released.  I remember speaking with the entire band, buying merch.  I would bring said DOP merch on tour with me once I joined Internal Bleeding a mere 3 years later and we toured for Voracious Contempt with Immolation and Six Feet Under in 95/96.  And they’re remained friends ever since.  Additionally; if you were to tell me back then Immolation would become one of the biggest names in all of death metal I would have told you to get your head out of the beer cheese.  It’s just that back then thinking something like that was possible seemed a pipe dream, but not for Immolation.  They continued to hone and perfect their dissonant and original death metal style, remaining consistent with album releases and touring.

With this amount of albums, obviously some are better than others and creating this type of death metal with the dissonance and warped guitar sounds one could say between Immolation, Gorguts and Demilich these 3 helped create a scene where we have seen other bands take influences from, such as New Zealand’s Ulcerate.  Acts of God is a grand slam of an Immolation album and one of their best-read on to discover what’s going on with this 15 song 52 minute album-quantity and quality with this one baby.

“Abandoned” is an instrumental starting up this album.  Slowly building up to a crescendo where you know the title track leading in will lop your head clean off those ridiculous shoulders of yours and hot damn it pulls no punches.  The song goes straight into a brutal blast beat.  Talk about an intense opening song.  The gang in elite form with Ross belting out the vocals, as if he was still 20 years old.  Mr. Vigna’s swirling riffs enhancing everything as the dissonance and bizarre off kilter riffing never sounding better.  Steve’s drumming and Alex’s guitar work-all blending perfectly together.  The song gets a bit slower than the blasting continues and excellent guitar solos cut through your eardrums with razor wire precision.

“The Age of No Light” has an epic buildup which blends right into a monstrous blast beat.  Some polyrhythmic drumming is on this song for sure and check out some of those drum rolls.  Beyond tight.  The slow downs, then blast sections then more of the epic rhythm moments are excellent.  This song has a sense of dread and evilness attached to it all the while creating a menacing flair, while Ross lets loose on some vintage 90’s growls.  More guitar soloing and ferocious blasting.  This song must be in their new live set.

“Shed the Light” is another song starting with a catchy opening moment.  Slow build-up, mid-paced and catchy AF guitar riffing and start and stop drums.  This song sounds as if it would be difficult to play.  Listen to the time changes and guitar riffs.  How do they do that??  Bizarre and original riffing to keep us listener’s from zoning out.  Otherworldly guitar solos creep in as if constructed in the caverns of hell.  Then right into a monster blast beat.  Crushing.

“Overtures of the Wicked” has some slow down moments which will create madness in the pit.  The vocals tones and music during these parts are excellent and catchy.  More blasting erupts and excellent vocal patterns.  The Holy Shit moment is at the 2.39 part.  Best song and moment on the album.  The song slows down after the monster blast and the vocals parts of: “Conquer and Divide the weakened is possessed….” – if you’re not singing this moment with Ross then maybe you need to rewind this part again and again and again.  This moment is epic, catchy, and punches you in the face!

Immolation’s Acts of God is my album of the year, as of this date.  I have listened to this album roughly 25x already and cannot get enough of this.  One of the purveyors of dissonant brutal death metal continue to age like a fine blood red wine.  Each song is expertly crafted with brilliant, swirling riffs, killer vocals and a rhythm section to cut your body into 52 pieces, especially if you try and eat a slice of my apple pie.  The album cover goes well with the lyrical theme and fits the band’s image.  The color palette I would have tried to make their awesome band logo a different color.  It appears monochromatic against the similar colors used for the artwork and tough to discern.  My only gripe with the album.  The production is clear, crisp and will pick you up and body-slam you until your limbs fall off.  Get this album and hear the greatness, that is once again Immolation!

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