Despite featuring Steve Tucker from Morbid Angel (whose return to Morbid Angel is fantastic news), the debut of then, post Morbid Angel project Warfather Orchestrating the Apocalypse was surprisingly bland. It was just OK USDM with a few orchestral flourishes that didn’t have anything really memorable to hangs its hat on other than Tucker’s involvement.

Well, with a couple of new members joining he and bassist Felipe Augusto, something has ‘clicked’ for the band and Tucker and co have delivered a killer American death album that recalls the Formulas/Gateways glory days of Morbid Angel.

The song writing has improved incredibly, especially the increased number of slower, churning, lurching numbers rather than  an all out blastfest and some piecemeal synths. It looks like Tucker has dropped the fluff and gone for killer riffs, and it has resulted in a vast improvement and one of the best pure American Death metal records of the last couple of years.

Standout track are the aforementioned big, loping monsters like “Judgement, the Hammer”, the Morbid Angel stop start squeal of “Carnage of The Pious”, personal favorite, the heaving “Headless Servant”  or the mammoth title track.  And if crumbling  closer “Fair and Final Warning” does not give you the “At One With Nothing” shivers , you might not like death metal. But there are plenty of blistering, classic Floridan twisty turny, blasting like opener “Orders of the Horde”, “Headless Men Can No Longer Speak”, The Dawning Inquisition” and “For Glory or Infamy”. Even the fast songs are on point, memorable and pummeling. Far more so than the debut.

The Erik Rutan production is undeniably  USDM/Floridan with a big but clear tone, another improvement from the debut.  Tucker is flat out spitting fire and all the members are integral to the end result. I just hope Tucker hasn’t blown his death metal wad and can help Trey with the next Morbid Angel album to cement  Illud Divunum Insanus  was a joke or a complete whiff and is forever erased from the histories.

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