Album Thoughts | Deinonychus: Ode to Acts of Murder, Dystopia and Suicide

One band I’ve been fond of for about a decade now, is Bethlehem. In my opinion, one of Germany’s best Black Metal exports who have put out some of the bleakest and most disturbing and strident Black Metal known to the human ear, with albums such as Dark Metal, Dictius te Necare and their most recent self-titled album. Because of these albums, they’re a band that I’ve always felt were criminally underrated within the Extreme Metal underground. My favorite album by them, however, the one that endeared me to them the most, was 1998’s Sardonischer Untergang im Zeichen Irreligiöser Darbietung. It was at the time, one of the most gut-wrenching and demented sounding albums that my then-17 (I think) year-old brain can muster and it really opened the door to me to the more unhinged and depraved fringes of Extreme Metal that I was still discovering in my later teenage years. I still love that album now as a semi-jaded adult. Handling vocals on that album, was Marco Kehren. His manic shrieks and intense, echoy growls were among the most inhumanly terrifying that I heard at the time. Bethlehem from then on, would become one of my favorite Black Metal bands. Their catalog wasn’t always perfect (let’s just forget about the Proggy stuff), but they do have some uniquely dark and intense classics to offer. This review however, isn’t about Bethlehem. It’s about the main project of said vocalist, Marco Kehren, known as Deinonychus and their latest offering, which harkens back to that disturbing, dismal and psychotic essence, but in a much more devastating fashion.

Ode to Acts of Murder, Dystopia and Suicide is the 8th full-length album by this monstrous duo of Blackened Doom and it’s Blackened Doom of the bleakest and most punishing variety, in the same vein as say, early Forgotten Tomb and Funeralium. It’s depression, misanthropy and a deep proficiency for the darker sects of the human experience in aural form and it’s done masterfully and it really took me back to the days of first discovering the more unapologetic and mercilessly brooding side of Extreme Metal and all of it’s sub-genres. Life Taker starts things off as it bursts right through the gate with a flood of massive, rumbling guitars, monstrous drums and those familiar tortured bellowing vocals that make the works of Mr. Kehren stand out to me so much. The production is fairly clean but the overall sound is fucking massive and super intense. The slower moments on this album especially stand out with just how harsh and unsettling it can get. Buried Under the Frangipanis is a perfect example of this with it’s opening of loud, searing tremolos over patterned, droning drums, extremely harsh growls and reverberating chants in the distance. Easily my favorite track. Dead Horse is another favorite on here, just for the eerie, dejected vibe it gives off as it follows the early Bethlehem method of slowly building tension throughout the first half of the track with a haunting, continuous melody played over distant, echoed cries of pain, then spilling into an assault of said pounding riffs and massive, crushing drums as the cries turn to violent searing. It even has a good degree of versatility to it, like in closer Silhouette, where you make it to the end of the slow, dragging tunnel and are met with a blasty and vicious conclusion. Great stuff.

This album is definitely deserving of a late review and it may be one of the most deserving of the bunch because it’s yet another staple of the incredible year for Doom Metal that 2017 was. In my eyes, it’s right up there with Loss, Funeralium and Bell Witch when it comes to quality slow crushers that last year rained upon us. It also provides a little bit of nostalgic value because of the close similarity to my favorite Bethlehem outing that I discovered a decade ago. I’m in no way nostalgia-driven, like a lot of people pointlessly are these days, but that is a nice touch. This is a devastating ride of an album through valleys of anguish, hatred and coldness that gave me the same feeling that hearing S.U.I.Z.I.D. for the first time did. As fairly clean as the production is, I wouldn’t call it a hindrance at all, it’s fine the way it is and it doesn’t interfere with the darkness and ugliness that this displays. Maybe it would be even better if it sounded dirtier, but fuck it, I’m not one to nitpick. Bottom line, this is an excellent fucking album and perhaps the best BLACKENED Doom album of 2017, whereas Spectral Voice had the best Death Doom album of the year. It would have been on my list for sure had it come out sooner. In fact, this is probably my wake-up call to just wait a little bit longer before making my year-end list. Just maybe.

So give this a listen and take a walk down this cold, scathing road of depressive madness. It’s crushing, cold as ice, exceptionally harsh and gives off such an unsettling vibe all throughout. Even if clean production isn’t your thing, again, it isn’t too much of a hindrance. To me, it’s still quality, gut-wrenching darkness channeled through a disgust for the failing state of humanity as we know it and executed masterfully. Well worth at least one aural beating.