Immolation

Immolation have one of the most consistently great discographies in death metal. Their 11th album Acts of God, out this Friday (February 18) on Nuclear Blast, meets their benchmark for excellence. It is not just their brand of death metal in its prime, but death metal itself in its prime, when it became more complex and sophisticated in the early ‘90s without losing its base fury and grotesqueness. Guitarist Bob Vigna’s labyrinthine guitar still drives them, going in all sorts of directions that seem incomprehensible when dissected on their own, but taken together are unrivaled in flow. How does “The Age of No Light” go from a dissonant black metal intro to pecking melodicism to charging upstrokes all in one song? Incomprehensibly brilliant. Bassist and vocalist Ross Dolan, the other remai...