Just when I thought God Dethroned were on their way to converting me into a fan, they pull a 180 and leave me scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell they’re up to this time around. 2001’s The Ravenous was a pretty solid release and a definite step up from their earlier blast-til-you-drop efforts. 2003 brings Into The Lungs Of Hell, and an entirely new musical approach from this Dutch death metal group. The style on this effort seems to be Amon Amarth meets Carcass meets At The Gates, and while the concept may sound good in theory, in practice it actually comes up short. Real short. The overall vibe for the album is Viking metal, fused with melodic Swedish death metal with Jeff Walker-ish raspy vocals. Unfortunately, the song writing on this effort is complete crap and everything just sounds like someone at Metal Blade told them "Hey, you know we could sell more albums of yours if you try to sound like you’re Swedish." and the group just excitedly agreed and completely changed their approach. Where the album really begins to blow ass is during the chorus of the various tracks, everything just sounds so incredibly corny, not only are the lyrics lame, but the presentation is funnier than evil or entertaining. The drumming is a big step down from The Ravenous, which featured ex-Angelcorpse drummer Tony Laureano, and now is handled by Arien Van Weesenbeek who’s played in all kinds of awful wanky acts, and continues his ho-hum style here. The sad thing is, there are a lot of good elements on this album, and just combined they turn into a cauldron swirling with shit. I’m a huge Amon Amarth fan and I love At The Gates, but the two combined just doesn’t work, and put a Jeff Walker vocal style on top? Wow, does it ever suck and blow at the same time. Well, I’m back to hating God Dethroned, I take back every nice thing I said about them, bloody wanking bugger wanking bloody fucking wanker bugger bugger bugger bugger wanker bugger fuck!

Written By: Teufel