Review by Vladimir on March 4, 2024.

It’s time to deep dive in this corpse pile and check out some gruesome death metal shredding. The subject of this review will be the German death metal band Denomination with their first full-length album They Burn As One, released on February 24th, 2022 via A.D.G Records. 

Denomination strikes hard and wild with limb-tearing and corpse-rotting action presented through raw and uncompromising death metal, going full berserk from the second track 'This Is Resurrection'. The band utilizes the standard oldschool buzzsaw death metal approach from the 90’s, very much in the style of bands such as Dismember, Nihilist/Entombed, Carnage and Grave, with a lot of d-beat/crust punk and thrash metal elements incorporated in the riffs and drum parts. Although the album primarily focuses on that traditional death-ripping aggression, it does sometimes manage to include a couple of interesting bits like the heavy metal style guitar solo on the sixth track 'Hydrofluoric Acid' which worked quite well alongside the rhythm guitar riffs. 

The songwriting remains simple and straightforward throughout the entire album, which by no means does that make this solid death metal execution feel weak or spineless. For the most part its consistency and simplicity contributes a lot by having the band stay on track for the majority of the album, even when you have some instances of slightly atmospheric direction. A particular stand out on this album for me was the cover art, which judging by the art style seems to be an older 19th century painting that depicts the suffering of humanity. The album cover somewhat conveys a similar feeling to that of Treasures of Satan by Jean Delville which was used for albums such as "A Tribute To Insanity" by Hexenhaus and "Blessed Are The Sick" by Morbid Angel. The production for They Burn As One has a very oldschool and raw sound, which used the very familiar HM-2 distortion pedal to create the buzzsaw guitar sound which is standard Swedish death metal. 

The album may not be anything that is out of the ordinary or particularly memorable, but it does provide some fun listening experience that was worth the while. Denomination obviously wants to keep things simple yet effective rather than simple but stupid in terms of their musical output, which is pretty decent for something wicked and rotten that the fans of 90’s death metal can enjoy. If bands like Carnage, Entombed, Grave and Dismember are your cup of tea, I recommend that you check out this album and see what it has to offer. 

Rating: 7.7 out of 10