It's taken four years, but Turkey's DECIMATION has returned with a new, intensely crushing offering in the form of 2014's "Reign Of Ungodly Creation." The band sound as ferocious and energized as ever, with nine songs of unadulterated Death Metal brutality.

At its base, "Reign" isn't terribly different from its predecessor, 2010's "Anthems of an Empyreal Dominion," with its hyperactive drumming, twisting guitar riffs, and consistently gravelly vocals. While the instrumentation is demanding by nature, DECIMATION's sound is more brutal than techy, in the vein of bands like SUFFOCATION, NILE, and DEEDS OF FLESH. The main improvement from their last effort is the quality of the songwriting. The songs were good before, but the band sound even tighter and more focused than before, a scary concept considering that "Anthems" was a pretty good record in its own right. The bass is basically nowhere to be found in the mix, but I feel it's about as necessary as leads are for the band to get their point across (which is to say, not at all).

The ringing of feedback grows stronger and stronger around the distant-sounding intro as "Noncelestical Orisons Cataclised In The Passage Of Ninib" begins, before exploding into the controlled chaos of the main verse. The mid-paced riff that opens and closes the song makes an excellent contrast with the blast-beats propelling it forward. The band keeps chugging forward from here, one pummeling offering after the other, including "Mystic Transformation in Encrypted Scrolls Of A Grievous Sermon" and "Aberrant Ablution by Filthy Excrements Of A Grotesque Crassamentum," with titles almost as long as the songs themselves. The latter song impresses as much with its dissonant chords and sinister pinch-harmonics as it does with its variety of malevolent riffs. The songs in general differ very slightly from each other in approach, but this one is still one of the album's standouts. "Psalm Carnage in the Ghoulish Chapel Of Gehenna" is the lone outlier, but its doomy atmosphere and suffocating atmosphere keep things flowing smoothly before again whipping into a frenzy on "Ghoulish Requiem for a Macabre Daemonarch."

While I wouldn't quite call "Reign Of Ungodly Creation" a classic, it's a strong effort that places DECIMATION firmly in the upper-tier of Brutal Death Metal acts, with devilishly intricate songs that are as technically challenging as they are unrelentingly brutal. In addition, the cover artwork by Dan Seagreave is awesome, like some kind of nightmarish interpretation of Van Gogh's Starry Night. The album is best experienced when listened to straight through, one track at a time, though each individual song here is formidable in their own right. It's high-quality Brutal/Technical Death Metal, and I'd highly recommend it.<