Personally, I never really had Malevolent Creation ranked as one of death metal’s Floridian elite. Even with the four album run of The Ten Commandments, Retribution, Stillborn and Eternal, the band never seemed to hit me with the legendary status of say Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide and Obituary, as they were more of a quality, consistent yet second tier Floridian act on par with say Brutality, Monstrosity and such.

Anyhow, 3 years after the solid Warkult and now with 4/5ths of the Stillborn lineup back, including vocalist Brent Hoffamn the band is back for their lauded 10th album and as with pretty much their whole discography we have some solid sometimes damn good, sometimes average but never truly great death metal of a pure Flordian ilk.

Granted, the break from ree-core and overly noodly tech death metal is refreshing as Malevolent Creation stomp, blast and growl their way through 12 stout tracks of old school American death metal with little flare or deviation and it will please most of you death metal cavemen out there.

Ironically though, I find Hoffman to be the weak link (maybe he should go back to his awful Down the Drain project) as his strained mid range rasps lack power or force (I thought Kyle Symons, who makes a guest appearance on the blistering “Bio-Terror”, was actually a better frontman) but new/old drummer Dave Culross (Suffocation, Hateplow, Incantation, Gorgasm) more than makes up for it with a damn steady performance in tracks such as fine opener “Cauterized” and the steady, classic gait of “Strength in Numbers”.

However, despite the relative enjoyability of the albums old school charms, though there’s a lot of predictable death metal filler on Doomsday X, and lot of forgetful tracks that sound like a band trying to forcefully relive their glory days, and unlike Obituary’s forthcoming Xecutioner’s Return, falls a bit flat on these ears. Plus the Mick Thompson (Slipknot) solo on “Deliver My Enemy” seems no more than a desperate reach to the kids even though I’m sure Slipknot has dropped Malevolent Creation as one of their favorite bands in numerous issues of Rolling Stone and Revolver.

To their credit though, ten consistent albums is a pretty impressive accomplishment especially while their peers have broke up, reformed and even sucked, Malevolent Creation (and mainly Phil Fasciana) has kept the band on an even keel for 17 years, and for that I have to give Malevolent Creation some respect, even if their form of death metal has grown a bit stale.

[Visit the band's website]

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