Review by Faithless on December 22, 2021.

Polish death metal veterans Azarath released their latest record called Saint Desecration which in my opinion was one of the best metal albums from 2020. The band plays a blend of death and black metal, however, in this particular record they lean more towards the death metal side.

The overall atmosphere of the album is infernal and impious. You can feel that the band is not re-inventing the wheel of death metal in terms of sound and lyrics, but they play with passion and hatred towards Christian beliefs. Polish society is deeply rooted in Catholic and Christian beliefs and unveiling the lies behind religion (pedophilia and corruption) is the main target of Azarath’s ideology. Something positive about Saint Desecration is that there are no dull intros or interludes. Azarath objective is to blast and destroy everything in sight. At the beginning of the first song, there’s a short clean guitar passage blended with a militaristic drum intro that prepares the listener for the vicious attack that is about to be unleashed.

Guitar wise the record is also flawless. Skullripper and Bart show mastery of their strings and shred the hell out of their axes. The riffs have a Deicide and Morbid Angel vibe, high-quality stuff. The record is well written for today’s standards, the songs range between 3 and 4 minutes. The longest song lasts 6 minutes but you never get bored, there are riffs for days.

Vocals keep up with the high level of the record, Skullripper’s range is not extremely high or low. I think that he keeps a middle range where his vocals sound blasphemous enough to keep up with the album’s atmosphere. I would say his vocal range is similar to David Vincent in "Covenant"/"Domination" Morbid Angel era and sometimes he sounds a bit like Glen Benton in the early Deicide days. Thus, it can be said that Azarath leans more towards the traditional American death metal sound from the ’90s infusing their own European identity.

The band as a whole sounds very tight and the death metal machinery is well oiled. Nevertheless, Inferno is the highlight here (not because of his Behemoth fame). He inhumanly annihilates the kit. Even though the drums relentlessly blast from start to finish; the kit sounds organic and fluid with out-of-this-world fills. The band claims that “no triggers were used in the record” and it is evident due to the articulate and clear sound of the drums. The production is clear but loyal to the old-school death metal sound. No modern metal-core or technical-death metal overproduced sound here, just old-school impious death metal.

Altogether, the musical execution in Saint Desecration is flawless from start to finish; all the instruments are aligned with the only objective of destroying eardrums. Here you will only find top-notch death metal mastery, no copy-cat band, or lame worship. Azarath is an affiliate of Satan, and they play the soundtrack of hell. Saint Desecration is a testimony that affirms death metal’s flame is not dead, it is rather blazing all holy beliefs and fake doctrines.

Rating: 10 out of 10