Here we have the debut of Rhode Island-based satanic death metallers Godless Rising’s Rising Hatred debut mCD. For those of you who don’t already know, Godless Rising is the new project of original Vital Remains members Jeff Gruslin (vocals) and Paul Flynn (guitars), ex-Ritual Sacrifice guitarist Mike Lecam (guitars/bass) and Leukorrhea drummer Mike McPherson.

The album is overflowing with corny satanic imagery, from the goofy demon with a sword on the cover, to the logo with a pentagram for an O to lyrics that make Deicide and Incantation’s lyrics seem Pulitzer-prize worthy. The music is typical of what one would expect from 90s-styled satanic death metal, poorly produced, raw-sounding death metal, extremely well played, yet poorly written and extremely repetitive that get dull after a minute, yet continue on for another 3 or 4 minutes.

While every fiber of my being wants to hate everything about this album, the fact that there are a few interesting riffs mixed throughout are preventing me from slamming this disc entirely. The drumming of Mike McPherson is solid and the riffing of Mike Lecam and Paul Flynn is top-notch, unfortunately, the production and the overall lazy songwriting prevents me from enjoying Rising Hatred.

The funny thing about this album is the only thing that really stood out and caught my attention is the thanks list that looks like it was written by Hulk Hogan. The word "brother" is used no less than 10 times throughout the thanks list. While counting the number of "brother"s in the thanks list I actually found myself starting to Hulk up, because you know Mean Gene, every time I see the name brother, brother, it gives me goosebumps, brother! It means all of my Hulkamaniacs have been paying attention, brother! It means they’ve been training, saying their prayers and eating their vitamins, brother! So what’cha gonna do, when these 24 inch pythons, Godless Rising and of my Hulkamaniacs run wild on you??? BROTHER!!!

Written By: Teufel