It's been a long two years for metal without a new studio release from these guys, and now it has finally arrived. Trust me, there is no disappointment here. Every chord of every song seemingly makes you feel as though you're being crushed further and further into a desolate ground. Coming off almost immediately as an improvement from 2004's rather mediocre effort,
Serenity in Fire, the band has clearly risen in terms of maturity. The "blood n' guts" asset, which has always been one thing that bugged me in death metal, is lessened here, obviously to an extent. Even more suprising is the lyrics, songwriting, and overall structure of these bone-crushing tunes. Fans of the band will certainly not be disappointed, and neither will the afoncianados of extreme metal.
The disc quickly kicks off to the relentless "Like Angels (Weeping in the Dark)". This song is loaded with enough riffs to kill. What spans over the next few tracks, or the entire album, for that matter, is the absence of a formula. That's a key player to a great album, in my opinion, since so many groups with core-esque influences tend to stray from the separation of sound between the tracks. As the album trodds along, songs such as "Open Scars" and "Temptation's Nest" shed light upon the potential that the group still holds to this day. "It Turns to Rust", perhaps the highlight here, is easily one of the catchiest and most well-written deathly pieces for some time. The song is even given a hand by Kittie's frontwoman, Morgan Lander. While this may seem like quite the joke among metalheads, she really shines and shows her pipes on the track. The mayhem continues, until this soon-to-be-classic finally calls it quits with the title track.
What we have here is an album that lives and breathes the riff, and in a sense that would've even given Dimebag a run for his money. True, the production seems a little muddy at times, with the vocals sticking out a little more than anything else. There's also a lack of perfection here, a perfection that can only be felt on classics such as
Paranoid or
Master of Puppets. Still, don't let that hold you back in the least. This is quality for its genre and, with the exception of Burst's
Origo, is undoubtedly the grandest metal album thus far in our new year. When it comes down to the end,
In the Arms of Devastation is, essentially, anything but a devastation.
9.6/10
