Eric Rutan is a death metal purist. Every Hate Eternal song he has written has been driven by blastbeats. His band has had a different lineup for every album. He played with death metal innovators Morbid Angel and has proven time and again that he knows how to get technical on the fretboard. Over the past few years, he has also been quite the factor in the beefy production jobs of bands ranging from the forgettable Demiricous to the legendary Cannibal Corpse. He is also proof that no matter how impressive your extreme resumé may be, you are not incapable of making a bad album.

The first thing you are going to notice about The Fury And The Flames is the production. Once the opening blasts of Hell Envenom begin to fill the air, your love of drums and vocals will be pushed to the limit. The drums, especially the kick drum, combine with the rumble of the bass to create a rumble that severely overpowers the breathing room of the guitars. Alex Webster’s bass certainly has presence, but lacks the definition he had in Cannibal Corpse that left me spellbound. Newcommer Jade Simonetto certainly knows how to pound his skins, but lacks the subtle touches that were so characteristic of Derek Roddy’s work on the previous two albums. Unfortunately, this over emphasis on the presence of the rhythm section doesn’t leave the other elements of the band in good standing.

Try as I might, I still can’t really distinguish one riff from another on this album. Nearly everything played by Rutan and Shaune Kelley is played at the same blistering tempo, with very little melody or innovation. Granted, this is brutal death metal and you can only push the envelope so far, but Rutan & company managed to write some memorable material on King of All Kings and I, Monarch while still retaining enough brutality to scare away 99% of the general public. The sad fact is that there is arguably no track that compares with Powers That Be or The Plague of Humanity. Bringer of Storms comes close, but is soon marred by the thick mess of a production job that makes the other tracks seem lifeless in comparison.

With the exception of the short Azagthothian-inspried outro Coronach, once you’ve heard Whom Gods May Destory you’ve pretty much heard it all. The grinding blast of Para Bellum sounds a lot like the grinding blast of Thus Salvation, which happens to remind me of the one-dimensional direction of Proclamation of the Damned. Rutan’s monotone grunt gets grating by the end of the second track, and deviates little from the rhythmic pattern laid down by the opening track. His riffs could be pretty cool, but I wouldn’t know since they are caked in a huge amount of distortion and sound like only a few frets and strings were utilized in their creation.

I’m sure there will be metalheads who think this is on par with the band’s past work, but I don’t think they are looking for the same thing I am. This album is the musical equivalent to putting an exclamation point after every sentence in a book, or having an explosion in every scene of a movie. There is no tension and release, just a constant level of tension. Rutan himself said that this was supposed to be the cathartic release of the emotions he felt after the death of longtime bandmate and friend Jared Anderson. As a result, I expected to hear some experimental and possibly disturbing elements creep into this album, but that didn’t happen. It sounds just as robotically angry and one-dimensional as an Origin clone; meaning it’s good to scare the shit out of an unsuspecting neighbor while showing off your mammoth stereo system, but not for listening enjoyment.

Note: Below is the video for "Bringer of Storms". In time the video may become outdated and fail to play.