Death metal is often referred to as the music of the devil, a theme the metalcore band The Black Dahlia Murder sincerely takes to heart on their latest album, Deflorate.
To say this album is heavier than the band's previous three studio releases would be an understatement.
The opening track, "Black Valor," is basically a blatant call to arms for Satan's army to rise up and take over the world, as frontman Trevor Strnad screams "unholy bearer of horns, empower me/ flow through my veins/ and carry me in war."
Deflorate takes the usual Black Dahlia Murder themes of death and Satanism and develops them into a crazy apocalyptic vision.
The third track, "A Selection Unnatural," speaks about the birth of a hideously deformed baby whose corpse becomes the next scientific experiment.
Frontman Trevor Strnad alternates between high and guttural screams to accentuate different parts of this grotesque illustration of societal and religious ironies.
That, paired with new guitarist Ryan Knight's arpeggio-laced solo, makes this the strongest track on the album.
After a while, however, Deflorate's lyrics become so extreme, especially in their anti-religious themes, that they start to unintentionally make a parody of themselves and the genre in general.
This is best seen on the track "Christ Deformed," to the extent that it seems Strnad and his bandmates never considered song writing an art, but rather a contest to see if they could create the highest piece of shock value on the market.
Despite the addition of Knight to the band and Deflorate's more hard-core tone, there really isn't anything musically significant to set this record apart from its predecessors, unless, of course, the album art is taken into consideration.
Overall, Deflorate is worth a quick listen if you happen to be a metalhead, but unless you're a diehard Black Dahlia Murder fan, don't waste your money purchasing the album. It does nothing to make itself stand out from other death metal bands, let alone BDM's other work. While there are a few interesting lyrics and solos, Deflorate is mostly boring.
