Their sixth studio album (seventh if you count 1993’s Amon: Feasting The Beast, which was basically their 1990 debut in demo form), In Torment surprisingly finds our wily God-hating antiheroes jumping on the rap-metal bandwagon to better reach their new audience on their upcoming world tour as openers for Korn and Kottonmouth Kings.

First stop: a special, all-ages show at Walt Disney World in Deicide’s homestate of Florida. Only kidding. Now breathe deeply, and hold on tight as the album’s first cut, the title track, opens its maw and belches out rip-your-face-off death metal as we have come to expect from our Deicidal denizens. “Christ Don’t Care” and “Vengeance Will Be Mine” continue the hyperspeed grind of shredding riffage and blastbeat drumming, but after four or five tunes, you might wonder what happened to the melodic yet brutal progression they had made on last year’s incredible Insineratehymn.

Gone are the catchy but still wicked chords, and in their place are eight tightly strung tunes (self-produced, as always) that unfortunately sound too alike with little variety. But this is one of the extremely few bands who’ve kept the same line-up from day one and haven’t sold their soul to commercialism in the least. Integrity-wise, I doubt they’ve ever toured with non-death/thrash/hardcore bands, so it’s safe to say that Deicide’s soul is right where it’s always been: south of heaven.

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