UMUR "The Negation" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Polish death metal act Decapitated. The album was released through Wicked World/Earache Records in February 2004. "The Negation" is the successor to the very successful "Nihility" from 2002. At this point the original lineup were intact (that would change after this album) and the band were often labelled one of the most promising young European death metal acts in various contemporary metal media.

The music on "The Negation" is death metal played with great technical skill. Don´t mistake that description for this being technical death metal, it´s just really well played. Vogg is what I like to call a riff meister extraordinaire. It´s not always easy to create memorable and catchy riffs playing music as brutal as this, but Vogg is not your average death metal guitarist. While the music certainly is brutal, Vogg also ensures memorability by incorporating groove to his razor sharp riffing. The other members are of course also well playing and while Sauron is neither the most distinct sounding nor the most intelligible growling vocalist I´ve listened to, he gets the job done.

For all the praise I have given to Vogg above, the riffs on "The Negation" actually aren´t as memorable nor as catchy as they are on the two albums that bookend it. No matter how many spins I give "The Negation" many of the tracks just won´t stick. But then it´s of course great that we´re treated to tracks like "The Fury", "Lying and Weak" and the title track, that feature quite a bit of memorability factor. Especially "Lying and Weak" stand out as THE highlight of the album to me.

Besides featuring excellent musicianship and relatively strong songwriting, "The Negation" also features a very well sounding production. Brutal and powerful. "The Negation" is the kind of album where I feel slightly bad only giving it a 3.5 star (70%) rating but IMO it just doesn´t live up to the extremely high quality of "Nihility (2002)" because some of the tracks aren´t that memorable. So I think that rating is fair even though this is generally a great death metal album.