After a 5-year wait, Germany’s most American-sounding death metal stalwarts, Dehuman Reign, are back with album number 3. And little has changed since 2020s Descending Upon the Oblivious.

Still playing a safe, predictable yet effective sound inspired by the likes of Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Monstrosity, and Malevolent Creation, the band delivers 9 songs and 2 intro/outros in 43 minutes of no-frills, thrashy old-school Floridian death metal.

Nothing more, nothing less, and like the last album and the one before it, it’s decent, not great, but not bad either. The production is crisp and tight, the vocals are nice and gruff, and a few tunes like “Opiuim”, “Post Traumatic Suicide Syndrome”,  “Ancient Enemy”, and groovy “Heretic” actually got my feet tapping a bit.

However, once the back-end tracks like “An Envoy from the In-Between” and  “Preparing Armageddon” roll around, my interest wanes a bit, despite being solid tracks.

Still, the fact that the band has sounded basically the same since forming in 2012 and releasing their debut EP in 2013 shows the consistency and comfort level that these guys are still doing it with, and doing it together with ease.

There’s not much more to expound upon really. It’s pretty well done, has a nice modern beefy production, no-frill Corpsegrinder ish vocals, lots of blasting and a few grooves and overall a competent no-nonsense release. There are no real standout tracks, but no bad tracks either. The 9 songs and 3 interludes blast by with gusto for 44 minutes and rarely break rank.

If I had to pick a couple of better tracks, it’d be “‘Serenade to the Blood Moon”, the surprisingly melodic “Caputo”, or the catchy canter of “Eternity’s Embrace”  as they add some melodic, variety and a few little slower lumbers amid the standard American blasts. That said one of the pure blasters “Repay Your Dept in Blood” caught my ear with a pretty solid main riff.

Rounded out by 6 minute “Self Induced Mass Extinction”, the album’s only real ‘slower’ number (though it has some blasts as well),  I found my self enjoying the album more and more, as the band lock into a pretty cool melodic but beefy form of death metal. But it FDA records so you know you are not going to get anything bad from the label, especially when it comes to death metal.

Consisting of an intro, two rather needless interludes and 5 actual songs, there is a little filler on this 21-minute EP, but the 5 actual songs are pretty stout and intense displays of no-nonsense blistering death metal. It’s nothing new or original, but that’s the beauty of it. The guitars have a perfect modern punch without being over produced, the vocals are deep and powerful, but not completely brootal, and the songwriting on the 5 tracks finds that perfect balance between blast beats, controlled, memorable aggression, twisty grooves and a few frenzied solos.

None of it is truly great, but it’s a quick, fun and intense listen that’s interrupted somewhat by the demon voiced interludes “Invocation I Black Seed” and “Invocation II Scorched Earth”. Still, skip those and dive right into the meat of the EP with the likes of “Extinction Machine”, “Irreversible Soul Consumption”, “Starring Beyond the Edge of Time”, “Veil of Ignorance” and blistering and fairly lengthy (compared to the other four songs) closer “Masks of Sorrow”, which ended up being my personal favorite on the EP. All deliver relatively similarly paced levels of speed and brutality, but with that unmistakeable sense of Floridian slightly technical, polished riffery.

Though not a ground breaking release that heralds a new king of death metal, Destructive Intent fulfills its namesake with no bullshit death metal as it should be and another solid release from FDA Rekotz.