This review, among two or three others, could only be four words long: Buy this fuckin' album!. But since my publishing director will start getting ideas from all the cannibal serial killers for what to do to me, I'm going to write a few things before I press the play button again.

GOD DETHRONED are back, with a new album, a new lineup and with great anticipation to make our ears bleed. I'm not going to write the usual stuff about the history of the band, the lineup changes of the past and number the albums they released. And, seriously, you can't write more than seventeen years of history in a few lines. The only three things I'm going to mention is that Passiondale is the eighth album from GOD DETHRONED and that the album was recorded as a trio since guitar player Isaac Delahaye decided to go into another direction. He did however contribute to the album by doing a lot of additional research for the lyrics Henri wrote. Just after the recordings, they held an audition and the lucky girl was Susan Gerl.

Passendale (Passchendaele was the official name but it was hard for the British to say it) is a rural village near Ypres in the Belgian province of West Flanders. Different nations' war cemeteries are found in Passendale: Tyne Cot Cemetery (the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world) for those who died in World War I. From what I read, Henri was passing through this village in order to go to Isaac Delahaye for their usual drinking sessions. This atmosphere from the World War I and by listening to the Scotch, Irish and English people that go to this village in order to pay homage to their relatives that died, singing while they were drunk, was his inspiration in order to write a concept album about the Great War.

The trio made an excellent work. With an intro that is in Japanese if I'm not mistaken and shootings in the background, the listener starts to get into the whole concept. From the first seconds of Under A Darkening Sky you know that this album will grab you by the neck and won't let you down until the end. In this album you will find out how Death Metal should sound. Of course the album has some melodic parts and some 'Black' ones, but it's not lacking brutality or strength; these elements just give Passiondale the complexity that a concept album like this one needs. Here you will find guttural growls, blastbeats and wall-of-sound guitars, just what a Metal fan needs! You will even listen to clean vocals, something that was inevitable for the concept to go on.

On the bottom line, this is a must-have album for all Metal fans. GOD DETHRONED are giving us a history lesson, much more interesting than the books we read in school. With Passiondale they showed that a band doesn't need Satanism, zombies etc to write a good Death Metal album. Go and buy it now!
P.S.: The album is available as a double limited edition digipak with a 9-track bonus CD, jewel case CD and on vinyl (ltd. 666 copies).