Sometime in the early nineties as the death metal scene exploded in America and Europe there came a band from Finland named Demigod. The band released what is widely acknowledged as a classic of the genre with their debut album Slumber Of Sullen Eyes. Over the years that album of old school death metal has simply gained in reputation and stature. Shadow Mechanics, the follow up released some ten years later failed to match up to the debut and was quickly  discarded by the fans inspite of being a pretty decent death metal album.

This year sees the band release its third album, close to fifteen years after that classic debut and it’s pretty apparent that the band has moved on. What we get here is modern death metal with the kind of riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a Black Dahlia Murder album and sometimes even comes down to pulling off a metalcore breakdown or two. That being said, Let Chaos Prevail is not a bad album. There are some good riffs happening and a sense of melody that works well in the songs. At the same time, some of it is very trendy. Like the band was paying close attention to what was happening in the extreme metal scene and then decided to borrow a few ideas from the trends prevalent today.

There isn’t a bad song on this album. They’re all mostly mid paced chuggy death metal songs with breakdowns and melodic breaks. Not too bad in itself but the problem that this album has is that the songs are all quite boring. Even the parts on the album that are supposed to sound technical and make you go “Wow!” just don’t do anything and we’ve heard all this before. There’s an embarrassing Lamb Of God type thing happening every now and then and To See The Last One Die comes uncomfortably close to plagiarism.

On the plus side, the bass guitar tone is quite awesome and it sounds thick and very clear. Honestly though, that’s about the only plus I can think of right now. The songs are all boring and there’s nothing on Let Chaos Prevail that sticks in your head after it’s over.

There is no basis for comparison between this new album and the classic debut and they may as well have come from two different bands. So, if you’ve never heard Demigod before but like melodic death metal with some modern chug then you could try this album out and may even like it. However, I’m not one of those people and for me this is a bland, uninspired, by the numbers effort and sitting through it is an absolute waste of time.  

Year Of Release - 2007

Label - Xtreem Music