Rough Edge: God Among Insects CD Reviews

GOD AMONG INSECTS

"World Wide Death" (Candlelight USA/Threeman; 2004)

Reviewed by Christopher J. Kelter

God Among Insects is yet another death metal supergroup attempting to capture the old Swedish death metal style, not to mention the original Sunlight Studios sound. God Among Insect's debut, "World Wide Death," has fairly gruesome cover art which sets the stage nicely for this kind of effort.

What separates this project is that everything is super-low. The guitars and bass grind away at the lowest registers of the sound spectrum without sounding too processed or fake. Even the vocals are deep guttural barks that march in perfect rhythm to the music. Most of the songs hover in the mid-paced range; quite frankly I was expecting something a little bit consistently faster track to track from this gang. But I'm not complaining – I'll take mid-paced Swedish death metal any day.

Oddly, my favorite track is "Purified In Carnage" which does add a little bit of a modern flair to the band's overall approach. This is strange, of course, given the band's desire to return to a sound first created in the late '80s and early '90s in Stockholm.

In the end, "World Wide Death" is for old-school death metal purists only. Normally this kind of critique only garners two-and-a-half guitarsaws from me, but I actually dug it so I'm going to give it a three guitarsaw rating. God Among Insects probably won't get the same frequency of spins that I normally give my favorite old-school death metal supergroup (Bloodbath), but it will certainly get more spins than most supergroups that end up in my hands.

"World Wide Death" was produced by God Among Insects and Tommy Tagtgren.

God Among Insects: Emperor Magus Caligula (Dark Funeral) on vocals, Lork K Philpson (The Project Hate) on guitars, Tomas Elofsson (Sanctification) on bass, and Torben Gustafsson (Vomitory) on drums.

For more information visit http://www.godamonginsects.se.

Rating Guide:

A classic. This record will kick your ass.

Killer. Not a classic but it will rock your world.

So-so. You've heard better.

Pretty bad. Might make a nice coaster.

Self explanatory. Just the sight of the cover makes you wanna hurl.

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