Immolation’s album Majesty and Decay back in 2010 was an absolute powerhouse in terms of death metal releases. After coming off of that masterful release, I had a lot of excitement to hear what new diabolical sounding album that had been brewing up for the last three years. Kingdom of Conspiracy, being their ninth full-length studio album to date, shows they are true veterans of the death metal and technical death metal scene. Immolation has had their share of fantastic brutal death metal records, while some previous releases needed much more polishing than others. Kingdom of Conspiracy is a great record, but left me feeling not as fulfilled as I was with Majesty and Decay.

Immolation still does one of the traits they know best. They still deliver hard menacing heavy riffs that layer every track with ridiculous sounding hateful aggression. In comparison to Majesty and Decay, their newest album has some beautifully crafted and devastating death metal guitar but decides to slow the tempo down quite a bit in a lot of the tracks. I wouldn’t go as far as calling them “breakdown” moments, but they do incorporate more instances of slower palm muting on the guitar accompanied by heavy double bass. However, much of my concern for the new album relied in terms of the drumming. I had the opportunity to listen to this album with a good friend of mine who pointed out a rather unsettling sound about the drumming that I agreed wholeheartedly with. It just seemed too overproduced causing it to sound like they used Tupperware products at certain times during my listen which did disappointment me a bit. It really took away from the album, but I didn’t let it ruin my entire experience because there are still some fantastic memorable moments.

A lot of Immolation’s song writing stems from hate which in turn is just perfect for a death metal environment. It’s always been heard quite well in all their previous albums and Kingdom of Conspiracy is no stranger to this. Being 25 year veterans of the genre, they are one of the few bands who know exactly what they are doing. The Great Sleep, one of my favorite tracks, may be one of the slowest tracks on the album but was one of the most stand-out songs. The guitar riffs are just evil to the core, and provides lead guitar that are equally as malicious. The vocals also portray much of the hate themed atmosphere quite well. The vocals are angry and rough, just like I was hoping for in an Immolation album.

Kingdom of Conspiracy is a great album to unleash a bit of rage with if you are looking to blow off some steam. They do death metal very well, but it wasn’t one of my favorites of the band unfortunately. The album however does point out the band’s extreme maturity with the death metal genre and should be embraced by their fans quite well overall. It is still yet another solid release from the band, and fits suitably well into their discography.