Location: New Jersey
Country: USA
Genre: Brutal death metal
Full length: Self-titled
Label: DevilReaux Music
Release date: October 31, 2025
The hype surrounding Demon Christ suggests something significant on the horizon, something that’s been developing for quite some time yet remains cloaked in secrecy. Described as a charismatic and relentless reckoning, its music serves as a conduit for the raw, unfiltered, and merciless love of a genre that accepts the darkness within as a pathway to liberation from the weaponization of the sacred, from institutions that offer salvation but only bring suffering.
Another description for their debut album is "empowerment through obliteration", as their music and imagery serve as pathways to rebirth amidst the surrounding chaos, blasphemy, and destruction. The band seems to reflect the notion that metal classics thought to promote violent or self-destructive behavior actually serve to deter such conduct in listeners. Only here, they’re confronting the hypocrisy present in organized religion instead of inciting blasphemy.
What gave me this idea was the listening experience of album being compared to a rebirth of a kind. I gather this rebirth arises from the process of confronting, acknowledging, and embracing one's inner darkness, while discovering opportunities for both internal and external transformation. Additionally, it involves recognizing the darkness associated with religious intolerance that may go unacknowledged by those who believe they do right.
The album begins abruptly, instantly poised to crush you with heavy, crunching guitar riffs and profoundly deep guttural vocals. Each drum hit resonates like a rusted nail piercing your flesh, bone and sinew with every strike. The rich production envelops you in inescapable darkness, leaving you little choice but to anticipate your fate. It strikes as a tribute to crucifixion and agony, revealing the profound suffering doled out during the time of the Roman Empire.
These sensations seem to intensify with each successive song, akin to heavy stone weights being placed upon suspected witches during the inquisition. The riffs, vocal arrangements and tempos are meticulously crafted to express anguish born of fury that can be transformed through a slow burn of malice and wrathfulness. This slow burn is depicted as a painfully gradual erosion, involving a process of dismantling followed by eventual reconstruction.
The clean production of the instruments is significantly sharpened by a gritty vocal tone. This juxtaposition appears to amplify the weight of the tracks, frequently merging the slow, mid-tempo and fast-paced segments into a brutal linear blur. Interestingly, this enables the lyrics to be easily understood and permits the accompanying music to share similarities with Mortician, Devourment and Internal Bleeding, with a notable addition of groove death metal.
I couldn't imagine a more fitting release date than Halloween this year, as it is believed that the boundary between our world and the next is at its most fragile. Who knows what might emerge upon listening to this album? Only time will reveal. -Dave Wolff
Lineup:
Dave “The Demon Christ” Incognito: Vocals, lyrics
Marc Petricl: Guitars
Mike Le Pond: Bass
Joe D'Aqui. Drums
Track list:
1. Braced For The Nails
2. You Suffer As I Smile
3. The Undying Light
4. Intro
5. Clown Behind The Mask
6. No Mercy For Betrayers
7. It Must Be Painful
8. Bow Before My Throne
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