arcane-beautiful Decapitated have had a very important role in death metal history, and a quite underlooked one at that. While the American death metal scene slowly watered down and became more quieter, the Europeans started to pick up the genre and really morph it. Bands like Dissection and Necrophagist did give the genre a slightly more technical and more epic feel, but the sound really had been given an extra oomph by these Polish death metal veterans.

One of the biggest highlights of this album has to be the production. In many ways the production reminds me of Zyklon's “Disintegrate”, but maybe even more extreme. The guitars and drum combination on this album really are mindblowing and are totally in your face the whole time. The sound on this album is probably the bands more technical moments

This album also sees the only time vocalist Covan would perform on one of the band's releases. I do actually enjoy his voice a lot on this album. His vocals remind me a mixture of a more gruffer version of John Tardy from Obituary mixed with Robb Flynn's more gruffer vocals.

Sadly, this album was the last album to feature drummer Vitek, after he tragically died in a car crash, just after the album's resale. In many ways this album is the perfect tribute, because his drumming on this album is absolutely fantastic, and really does show how he really was one of the most talented drummers in metal history.

The album opener “A Poem About An Old Prison Man” is a brilliant intro. With dark foreboding lyrics taken from a poem written by Charles Manson, it matches well with the absolutely chaotic riffs and insane drumming. “Day 69” has some rather Nile sounding riffs, which always is able to add atmosphere to certain moments.

One of the albums more interesting moments has to be on the album's 2 longest compositions “Post(?)Organic” and “Visual Delusion.” Due to their longer track times, the songs obviously have a lot more added to them, with a lot of interesting twists and turns, that show the technical side to the band.

In conclusion, this album proves that these guys are a dominant force in the death metal world. This album is definitely one of the heaviest these guys have released. If you like death metal brutal, then this is the perfect mixture of good musicianship and earth shattering sounds.

RIP Vitek

8/10