We’ve been fans of God Dethroned for a while, but were late-comers to the wonders of the band’s 2009 release, Passiondale. Late or not, we splashed our admiration for that unusual album all over these pages in January (here). But you can be damned sure we won’t be late again when God Dethroned releases its next album on November 23.
It will be called Under the Sign of the Iron Cross, and like Passiondale, it will be another concept album about World War I. Singer/guitarist Henri Sattler has explained that the fires of his continuing interest in that conflict were stoked by his reading of In Stahlgewittern (Storm of Steel), Ernst Juenger‘s journal of his daily experiences in the trenches during the war.
Today, Metal Blade began streaming the first song from Under the Sign of the Iron Cross. The song is the title track, and holy hell, is it heavy as fuck. It’s fitting that we put it up here for your listening pleasure today, on the heels of our post about Autopsy, because it’s a bludgeoning piece of blackened death metal, as extreme as anything God Dethroned has done in many moons.
But . . . it’s also beautiful. (more after the jump, including that song to stream . . .)
A clear guitar lead spins out a melody in the opening seconds of the song, and the music will return to that theme eventually, but in the meantime the band inflicts a barrage of downtuned, distorted, blast-beat-ridden, tremolo-picked awesomeness — accented by a blistering guitar solo and some barely audible clean singing. At the end, the distinctive opening guitar melody returns, and then gives way to a symphonic recasting of that melody with a piano taking the lead.
It’s a helluva song. Listen for yourself:
The original location for this stream is a Metal Blade page about Under the Sign of the Iron Cross, which also includes options for pre-ordering the album, and you can get to that page via this link.
9 Responses to “GOD DETHRONED: UNDER THE SIGN OF THE IRON CROSS”
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Fuck that starts off tasty! Listening into the song right now and I like what I’m hearing. I never knew before I started DMB that there’s so much good metal coming out of my own country (or that there was so much good metal coming out of any other country). You just have to look for it 🙂
You’re rightly proud of the metal coming out of the Netherlands. For a relatively small place, it has produced (and is still producing) an amazing volume of kickass music. Guess it’s obvious, but I can’t adequately express how stoked I am for this next God Dethroned album!
Desperately waiting for this release. Have loved (almost) every record they’ve put out.
Great live too.
Would kill to see them live. I’m hoping there will be a NorthAm tour behind this new album.
Never could get into this band, but I gotta admit, this song sounds pretty good.
I haven’t heard anything from this band before, but this song was great. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.
Glad you liked it. This is one of those bands that’s constantly growing and their sound has changed over time, but I’ve always found their music absorbing and excellent.
‘The toxic touch’ was the best, also, I wonder what dummy has put unprotected stream on that page. Took me about 30 sec to download all. They might as well give it away for free.
FYI, even though I rip mp3s, I ALWAYS go to the bands’ concerts, no matter the ticket price.
I have to assume that was intentional, but who knows? I would pay money AND draw blood (only my own, of course) to see this band play live.