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| #FOR FANS OF: Death Old School |
New York-based band Glorious Depravity is back with their essential sophomore effort, five years after the remarkably solid debut album ‘Ageless Violence,’ where this young band showed great devotion to 90s metal. The project consists of five members with a good degree of experience in the metal scene, as they are part of different projects that range from traditional heavy metal to more extreme tendencies. With Glorious Depravity, the focus was clear and plain: to display some brutality under the metal banner, with no room for modern tendencies.
'Death Never Sleeps' is the name of the new beast, and it confirms the potential of this band. From the eye-catching album artwork, which depicts a hellish landscape, it is clear that the band has done its best to outperform its debut. The production is faultless, clear yet powerful, allowing both the drums and the guitars to show their full potential and sound like a true wall that hits the listener from the very beginning. Doug Moore’s performance as the singer is undoubtedly one of the highlights of this album. His vocals are tremendous, and even though variety is not usually a characteristic in metal albums, he tries to add some nuances as he combines growls with different levels of depth and occasional high-pitched screams, like the ones you can hear in the devastating track "The Devouring Dust".
Pace-wise, the album is quite varied. Glorious Depravity successfully combines speedy sections with slower ones that are truly headbanging-inducing. I can easily imagine that songs like "Freshkills Poltergeist" or "Carnage at the Margins" could create some nice mosh pits at a concert, which is always a good sign for a metal album. One of my personal favorites is "Stripmined Flesh Extractor" with its relentless fury. This track could certainly create some chaos among fans. In each song, the fast, medium, and slower sections are excellently combined as these tempo changes flow naturally through the entire composition. The riffing is as heavy and solid as you can imagine; the whole album is full of crushing riffs that will make you move your head like crazy. There is almost no room for solo virtuosity, although the album closer "Death Never Sleeps" gives away a glimpse of it.
All in all, ‘Death Never Sleeps’ is a very good album that will delight die-hard fans of 90s metal. This effort, however, has a contemporary feel to its production that makes it sound fresh. In any case, expect no less than a classic and satisfying, neck-breaking dose of pure metal.
(Transcending Obscurity Records - 2025)
Score: 80