"Where Gods Come to Die" is a rumbling hammering assault on the ears. After the intro track you're treated to the sound of pure brutality. This is a relentless, no frills attack of uncut death metal. It's all here, the things you know and love: Blasting beats, demonic vocals, ominous overtones, distorted rumbling guitars. I don't know if I actually learned where the gods go to die, but they apparently love to head bang while they do it. Raise your horns and dig it.

This album is full of very low end melodies buried under a churning agonized rumble. I love the thick wall of sound that death metal has and in this release it definitely comes at you full bore. While this isn't anything overly technical or progressive which seems to be all the rage nowadays, this album is full of pounding heaviness. Standout songs for me were "Vultures in the Blood Red Sky" and "Empty Grave" however each song was just a trip down memory lane to a time when bands didn't need overly complicated mixes of jazz-salsa-synth-Cajun-folk-orchestra-yodeling fusion-core or any other trendy nonsense that occasionally plagues music to the point of detriment nowadays. I get it. I sound like a cranky old man waving his fist at the passing kids on his property, but my point here is that part of what makes metal so great is the immediacy of it. Death metal especially, is very visceral. It's about intensity and brutality and primal carnage. Experimentation is great but sometimes you just want the steak and potatoes to get your fill. This is what DEMONBREED successfully does, they play intensely heavy barbaric music in the style so many of us grew up enjoying.

This album reminded me of bands like DISMEMBER and VOMITORY. I personally would have loved to hear a few more solos thrown in, I honestly can't complain because the album is just too good at what it does, punish you with evil riffs and solid musicianship. There is one track on this album that comes out of left field. "Blood Colored" uses comprehensible vocals and comes off as more of a death rock track. It sounds like something ENTOMBED would have put out at one point. I honestly enjoyed it regardless of the fact it was a swerve, it was still a foreboding piece of malevolence befitting of the album.

Do I recommend "Where Gods Come to Die"? Absolutely, but the caveat being you want straight Death Metal and aren't looking for anything too fanciful. This is a slog through the trenches of heaviness. Sure there are moments of clearer vocals here and there but this is unrelenting old school late 90's-early 00's death metal fun. It's like watching a new horror movie that captures what made the classics so great. DEMONBREED definitely understand what Death Metal should sound like and delivered a rock-solid release.