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DESERTED FEAR
Kingdom Of Worms

FDA Rekotz (2014)
Rating: 8.5/10

German death metallers Deserted Fear generally go for the jugular with their rather blunt brand of extremity, and I’m pleased to say that on album number two there’s no change.

The band released their 2012 debut offering My Empire to positive reviews, and this time round they’ve added a touch more melody – enabling the riffs to become more groove-based – but it’s still a fearsome act happy to go along with what it says on the tin.

From the dry, straining vocal scoffs of Manuel Glatter down to the harsh, cutting leads of Fabian Hildebrandt, this is thrashing death metal played for keeps, reminding one of Hail Of Bullets and Asphyx and that sort of company as it sort of wafts in at the – dare I say it – lighter end of the death metal spectrum, but it still makes a hefty impact.

With that dry sound it’s only natural that such comparisons with some of the greats will occur, but I really enjoy the blunt, old school approach of this opus that clearly doesn’t need gimmicks to get its message across. After a few spins the album really grows on you, bruising the ears with such masterpieces as the gruelling ‘Wrath Of Your Wound’ with its slamming percussion courtesy of Simon Mengs, while ‘The Agony’ successfully fuses contemporary technical death metal with old school nuances to create a thundering rollercoaster of scathing riffage and tight bass trundles to accompany Glatter’s precise riffs.

What Deserted Fear have done on this opus is implemented varying influences, whether it be British grit, Swedish savagery and more so that Polish tightness we’ve come to love, and coupled with the obvious Dutch influences and their own German rage, Kingdom Of Worms succeeds by being so damn simple and unassuming, merely getting on with the job at hand to craft a direct battering ram that takes no prisoners.

I’ve struggled to pick out favourite songs because such is the consistent nature of every object of desire placed before the ears, but at a push I would have to put forward the snarling ‘Call Me Your God’ with its breakneck speed and killer melody, as well as the meandering melancholy of ‘Shattering The Soil’ with that ashen guitar tone which suddenly transforms into a brain blender swirling fast and energetically as Glatter’s vocals reach across the belligerence as if Tom G. Warrior (Celtic Frost, Triptykon) had been chewing a wasp.

It’s a rare thing in the modern climate for a no frills record to leave so many bruises, but Deserted Fear are living proof that with enough hooks and punishing delivery they can blend the old with the new without resorting to gimmicks. Neither polished or primitive, Kingdom Of Worms is just a menacing slab of ashen metal that is something akin to chewing on the wreckage of your own metallic soul.

Neil Arnold

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