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DEIPHAGO
Into The Eye Of Satan

Hells Headbangers (2015)
Rating: 8/10

So, I’m assuming by the title of Deiphago’s fourth album that Satan is some sort of cyclops? Anyway, onto the music… Deiphago is a band that has been around the block in some form, having formed way back in 1989 under the moniker of Satanas / Baalzebul out of the Philippines. A year later the name was altered to Deifago, and then the current brand a year after that.

In the past this trio has been deemed one of the most violent bands on the planet, built upon the foundation of founding members’ Voltaire 666’s rusty bass and decrepit vocals as well as Sidapa’s horrid leads. The duo is joined by drum beast Savnok who also appeared on the band’s last record, 2012’s Satan Alpha Omega.

As expected, Into The Eye Of Satan is a continuation from the last record; in other words, the musical equivalent to being thrown in a blast-furnace and having your skin and bones ravaged by the flames of Hell. This really is one hell of a violent record, the band living up to their frightful reputation by way of steamrollering the listener into a bloody pulp by way of drums which hurtle at such a pace that your ears will feel as though they’ve been hit by a blizzard of metallic shards.

The guitars are a vile frenzy – a true nightmare for the soul as they wail with such ferocity that it’s truly hard to keep up with this blackened tumult. Couple this with thorny bass-lines which just hammer from start to finish and a vocal sneer that is as sweltering as the framework to the point where the listener only ever seems to hear the words “Satan” and… er, “Satan” belched out at such a furious rate that the only respite is the brief gap between such hymns of hate. Indeed, after my earache had finally dissipated, only then could I go in for another blast of this truly obliterating record; one which combines evil thrash and hideous blackened-death metal annihilation.

Fans of Conqueror and the likes will no doubt lap up the rust cast off by this demented gang who from the beginning of ‘Evil And Adverse’ until the end of the title track are only interesting in blowtorching the body. I don’t really know where to begin, such is the horror, hate and speed churned out by this trio; it’s just an uncompromising slab of aggressive evil metal that only occasionally hints at an attachable melody.

And so we just get raped aurally by the rancid apocalypse dreamt up in ‘Bloodbath Of Genocide’ and the utterly demonic pounding of ‘(6 x 6 x 6) / 3’, which has a title alone that could suggest some obscure algebra for Lucifer’s world-conquering formula. The drums batter at such a pace that I’m scurrying for the medicine cupboard looking for the migraine relief, but every instrument just acts as one blasphemous wall of evil. Deep within those blistering hot cracks though, there may be time for a wild Sidapa solo or occasional accessible riffage as with the opening clank of ‘Serpentine Anti-World’, yet this is very much a super-fast opus that is sure to bring on a permanent wave of unrivalled stress for the listener.

Any fan of grinding, thrashing war metal is going to be more than happy to sacrifice their bones to this harsh climate of truly extreme and barbaric metal which, for those interested, also offers up the bestial mastery of ‘Calculated Acts Of Cruelty’, the venomous tirade of ‘Red Dragon Of Chaos’, the harmful bleating and beating of ‘Ritual Death Of The Enemy’, and the horrendous slaughter of the aforementioned title cut where the bass becomes coated in clotted blood in order to steer this wayward ship into even stormier waters.

Be thankful for those welcoming hints of black melody because when the waves of speed and psychotic frenzy arrive, you’ll find yourself writhing on the floor in puddles of your own urine – wishing you hadn’t pressed that play button. Satan and his one glowing eye would be so proud of this deadly debacle.

Neil Arnold

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