Description

Dutch death-metal band God Dethroned was formed in 1991 by vocalist Henri Sattler with several friends (credited only as M. Beukeveld, M. Arends, and A. Dijkstra); they recorded a demo and got the opportunity to release an album on the small German label Shark in 1992. Titled The Christhunt, it did little commercially, and God Dethroned went on hiatus the following year, with Sattler forming a new group called Ministry of Terror. Following that band's 1994 album Fall of Life and a supporting European tour, Sattler decided to re-form God Dethroned with guitarist Jens, bassist Beef, and drummer Roel. This new lineup scored a deal with Metal Blade, which issued The Grand Grimoire in late 1997; the album was released in the U.S. the following year and achieved a fair amount of airplay on college-radio metal shows. The Grand Grimoire is quite a bit rawer than much of what the band would put out later, every song on this album is full of energy and quite invigorating, the guitar tone equal parts crunchy and sharp, with powerful, energetic drumming and a vicious vocal performance from Henri Sattler. Sattler has a throat-ripping vocals focused on violence and blasphemy that suits the music so well. The rawness and quality of ‘Grand Grimoire’ makes this an album suitable for both black and death metal fans. But make sure you anchor everything down before playing because everything from the distorted war chants to the slave galley metronome hits like a blast wave from a nuclear bomb Track listing: 1. The Art of Immolation 2. The Grand Grimoire 3. The Luciferian Episode 4. Under A Silver Moon 5. The Somberness of Winter 6. Sickening Harp Rasps 7. Into A Dark Millenium 8. Coloseum Serenades 9. Fire