Empheris - The Return of Derelict Gods

EMPHERIS - The Return of Derelict Gods (OLD TEMPLE / WINGS OF DESTRUCTION - CD 2019)

It's been few years now since I’ve bought anything new from Empheris, last time it was "We Are the Ancients" split CD they participated in. But that was back in 2013 (damn!). Empheris wasn't that much busy in these past few years though, they only released a live album and three splits (all on cassettes, which I am not interest to collect), so I didn't really lose much. But finally, a new album "The Return of Derelict Gods" was unleashed in 2019... and I am really, really pleased to hear it, because it's a very good effort... In my humble opinion, this is Empheris' best album so far, definitely their most mature and simply best sounding material. I like a lot of their earlier recordings, sure I do, but with "The Return of Derelict Gods" this band took a step forward, both with the songwriting quality and production. And they achieved that without losing anything from their viciousness, aggression and harshness of old school thrashing black metal - or blackened thrash metal, however you're gonna call it. 

Definitely "The Return of Derelict Gods" can be defined as a very traditional metal album, where the riffage, the atmosphere and the feeling are all deeply influenced by many 80's or early 90's thrash, black and even heavy / speed metal legends. I'm not gonna bother to mention some concrete names, they should be too obvious and besides, mostly such name-dropping is boring. What matters more is how great Empheris sounds on this new album. I absolutely love that archaic, yet insanely fascinating and catchy, viciously punching riffs, which have such a powerful kick that all I wanna do is play the music louder and break all shit around, while banging my skull like a crazy fuck. This music is very fast, Empheris doesn't bring any of these more epic songs, which they sometimes used on the previous albums, but it works very well, as songs like "In the Name of the Unholy Spirit" are a pure aggressive onslaught and the whole content of the album doesn't bore at all. They added a bit more melodic patterns here and there, but did so without compromising and without softening their style. The performance is excellent, I also like Adrian's vocals a lot, I think he sounds better than in the past, more bestial... And as I also mentioned earlier, the production of "The Return of Derelict Gods" is spotless. I don't need anything else. Excellent album, in my opinion. 

I have a very cool CD version here with me, as normally this album is unleashed by Old Temple Records, but I got a limited edition on digipak from Wings of Destruction, which contains two bonus tracks taken from 2007 demo “Black Pyramid”, which I never heard before – so, it is a very cool thing to have as a bonus. I am gonna play this album a lot, I tell you that. And I highly recommend it to you all. 

Standout tracks: “Rot No More”, “Black Mirror”

Verdict: 85/100