Immolation

Although I wasn’t a fan of their previous two releases, this time around New York’s Immolation did things right. Failure of Gods is one prime slab of New York-style death metal. It easily fills the vacancy left by Suffocation’s departure and Immolation joins Mortician as one of the city’s elite. Led by the twin guitar attack of Robert Vigna and Thomas Wilkinson, Failure of Gods succeeds by taking chances. Instead of just playing straight ahead for 40 minutes, songs such as the title track finds the group changing time patterns and adding varying dissonant guitars into the mix — both things other less experienced bands would either shy away from or die trying.