GOD DETHRONED – The Judas Paradox

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6.0

• Band:
  GOD DETHRONED
• Duration: 00:42:19
• Available from: 06/09/2024
• Label:

• Reigning Phoenix Music

Streaming not yet available

With their previous album “Illuminati”, God Dethroned seem to have opened a new chapter in their now long career. The 2020 work introduced a new look and also a partial change of style for the band of Dutch origin, which began to explore the terrain of a death-black metal with more airy and epic shades, showing a more marked tendency towards solutions capable of working well in live contexts that are not too sectorial, such as the big European festivals.
This discourse is reiterated with the new “The Judas Paradox”, the first album of the band to be released through the new label Reigning Phoenix Music (RPM).
From the opening of the album, it is clear that God Dethroned are aiming for a varied tracklist here too, alternating martial midtempos and the usual more angry lashes. This variety certainly does not represent a novelty for the band, which even in its distant beginnings has often shown a certain inclination to break the rhythm and try its hand at more articulated episodes. However, if in the past this diversity translated into an agile and poisonous mix of death-black metal and Slayer-style thrash, today it seems that the group is trying to explore a less tense and more enveloping sound, with priority for compositions with a very lean and linear development, with an eye towards classic heavy influences and a rhythmic approach that can sometimes recall certain Amon Amarth, revisited in a pseudo-occult key. However, as had already happened in the previous chapter, the songwriting is not always able to support this unusual search for atmosphere. Some songs, in fact, are weighed down by melodies that, while aiming for a certain grandeur, end up sounding banal and not very incisive. This tendency to veer towards a more loaded and majestic sound, already felt recently, is also repeated in “The Judas Paradox,” accentuating a feeling of vague tackiness that risks overshadowing the solemn intent that the band seems to want to pursue.
Consequently, it is in the most aggressive and direct moments that God Dethroned manage to shine the most. The most intense songs on the album, in fact, offer an energy and determination that seem to be missing in the more airy tracks, where the quartet sometimes seems to get lost in the attempt to create a more sophisticated and enveloping musical experience, but lacking in elegance. In this sense, songs like “Rat Kingdom”, with its references to Dark Funeral, “Hubris Anorexia” or “The Eye of Providence” remain etched in the memory, which seem to merge the two souls of the group with good effectiveness.
Overall, “The Judas Paradox” is an album that might not disappoint the expectations of recent fans, but at the same time it fails to elevate the musical proposal of God Dethroned to new levels. On the other hand, after so many years of career and with a dozen albums under their belt, it is perhaps understandable that the band has reached a certain creative plateau, resulting a little awkward when trying to take other paths.
In any case, the great fans of the band led by Henri Sattler will still find some engaging episodes, but for those looking for something more concrete and mean it will probably be the case to put back on a “Boiling Blood” or other hits from the past.