Deserted Fear - Drowned By Humanity (Bonus Tracks Version) (2019)

When I think “German death metal,” I usually think of names like Muhammed Suiçmez, Lille Gruber, and Christian Münzner. Innovators in technicality and brutality, all three of them have left their mark on metal despite the drowsy German death metal scene. Every so often though, the sleeping snore, and the cause of the rumble today is a different trio with a different take on death metal. Deserted Fear pay homage to their boreal neighbors via a chunky synthesis of Björriffs and Viking simplicity, and even if their fourth album, Drowned by Humanity¸ won’t awaken Teutonic death metal, it stirs the body enough to delay a death pronouncement.

Deserted Fear sound exactly like you expect a Century Media band to sound in 2019, for better or worse. Chunky riffs, meaty production, and concise songs are the order, and Deserted Fear deliver on time. If you want a record that sounds like a distillation of At the Gates, Amon Amarth, and Heaven Shall Burn, you might think you want Drowned by Humanity. If you don’t want that, well, it’s still here in case you change your mind. You can enter the album at just about any point and expect to hear one down-tuned guitar playing a lead over the mid-paced riff of another down-tuned guitar, kick drums keeping pace in the background and a German man belting out a half-death-growl-half-hardcore-roar.

If it seems like I’m not terribly excited about this exercise, it’s because I’m not. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Drowned by Humanity. It has many of the flaws endemic to modern death metal: an out-of-place intro track, a few cringe-worthy tough-guy lyrics, a few riffs that are just a tad too far on the chuggy side. It’s mostly mid-paced and mostly easy to follow each song, even though they all sort of run together. It’s boring after about fifteen minutes. It’s what you would expect Dethklok to sound like if you’d never listened to Dethklok: an uninspired distillation of the commercial edge of death metal. It evokes nothing more than cheap tabulature books stuffed to the gills with generic riffs and drum patterns that teach the basics without infringing any copyrights.