Dr. Living Dead! - Crush The Sublime Gods

Published March 01 2015

*=Staff's pick	Final Broadcast Crush The Sublime Gods* TEAMxDEADx Eternal Darkness Of The Fucked Up Mind Buck$ Civilized To Death Another Life Force Fed Scanners* Salvation No Way Out Triggerkiller Wake Up… Join The Dead!*

Genre	Thrash Metal	Dr. Mania	Vocals
Tracks	13	Dr. Toxic	Guitar
Running time	46 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Century Media	Dr. Rad	Bass
Release	23 February 2015	Dr. Slam	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Producer	-
Similar artists	Annihilator, Suicidal Tendencies, Megadeth

Sweden's skull-mask clad thrashers Dr. Living Dead! released their self-titled debut album in 2011. It was followed up with Radioactive Intervention the year after and now the time has come for their third album, Crush The Sublime Gods, which is their first release via Century Media.

The album begins with a short, instrumental intro track that gives me associations to The System Has Failed by Megadeth, with regards to the sound as well as the thematics, with the whole troubled news broadcasts thing going on. It's always a little bit sad to begin judging an album by what other albums it sounds like. That being said, I would describe Crush The Sublime Gods as a mix between The System Has Failed, Suicidal Tendencies and modern Annihilator. That is to say, it's a modern thrash metal album rather than an old-school one and whether that's a good thing or not is entirely a matter of preferences.

The title track and TEAMxDEADx kicks off the album in a high tempo but I'm surprised by the overall lack of tempo in the album - even fast songs like Buck$ and Civilized To Death seem to revolve around slower parts. In a way, I appreciate this as it makes the music more dynamic and truth be told - I've listened to all too many thrash metal albums which seem to have the exact same, high tempo for 45 minutes. Putting this issue aside, I do think that the songs aren't really very memorable. I can, however, imagine that many of the songs work better in a live setting.

If you're a big fan of present-date Annihilator and Suicidal Tendencies then check this one out. Personally, I think Crush The Sublime Gods is an okay album but it has a weak and pretty generic production and doesn't quite manage to stand out in a genre where it's indeed very hard to do so today. I really enjoy the Slayer vibes from their earlier albums and when I listen to those albums today I quickly realize how that aggression and ferocious energy is sadly missing here. I prefer high-tempo thrash metal to mid-tempo thrash metal any day.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	5	5	6	5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Blidmark