Antidivinity has been my first time hearing Philly outfit No Gods, despite them having existed for around for a decade or so. Alongside four songs in just 12 minutes, the cover art had me expecting ripping grindcore, so I was somewhat surprised to be greeted by a well-produced, thrash-centric approach peppered with death metal and metallic hardcore influences. The vocals are a somewhat exaggerated version of a hardcore-ish snarl, but actually have a distinctive edge that's really interesting. For so many bands these days, the vocals are just totally generic and have no differentiation from their contemporaries, so it's nice to hear some individual vocal identity for a change.
"What You Deserve" kicks things off faster-paced and with more of a direct thrash attack, though not without a destructive breakdown and subtle undercurrents of dissonance (cool little flurries of melodic bass, too). The title track takes a mid-paced death metal type of churn with dense rhythms and hard-hitting percussion, before suddenly shifting into a quick, unexpectedly winding harmonized run toward the end. "Now I Rot" brings back some speed—sort of a death/thrash hybrid complete with energetic tremolo picking—while the passages with whispered vocals or tortured background wails lend a darker atmosphere. The verses shift between metallic hardcore power chords and galloping chugs, eventually heading into a Slayer-esque lead section. "Chains" then continues the death/thrash angle by infusing a dash of hectic complexity to the riffing—also dropping into another crushing breakdown/solo, this time with fragments of dark melody.
Physical copies are limited to 100 tapes with a full-color, double-sided J-card that includes artwork and credits (no lyrics here, nor on Bandcamp); while the cassette shells are black and white swirled into a marbled gray with white on-shell printing.
Not bad at all. Another worthy submission from the Heavy & Fast discography, and a band whose back catalog I'll need to further explore based on the strengths of this material!
Get It
- Heavy & Fast Records/Distro (cassette)
- Bandcamp (cassette, mp3)
- Apple Music (stream)
- Spotify (stream)
