Biblical Brutality: Diatheke's Metal Genesis
An album of biblical proportions, Diatheke will release …And The Word Was God on March 21st of this year.
This is a rollercoaster of death and progressive metal, stretching up to 10 and 12 minute-long tracks that tell the epic story of creation through the darkest days of humanity. It’s a concept album; very ambitious and unlike most I’ve heard. We start with The Creator, its beautiful and melodic keyboard intro that manipulates listeners into a false sense of comfort before death and black metal vocals charge in, bringing unsettling distress and leading us to the dark side.
The Deceiver begins brutally, demons screaming up from Hell immediately. It’s full of double bass, a dip into death metal, and a short, but chaotic guitar solo at the very end. This track is vocal heavy, backed against a wall of sound. The Promise starts out totally different, with cleaner and more progressive vocals before diving into sudden and extreme changes. The lyric video for this one is the strangest I’ve ever seen, and caused me to rabidly search for the unique horror film the visuals were taken from, which I could not find. I’m still looking.
Track four is The Redeemer; pure, classic progressive metal at the start. But as with Diatheke’s style, it takes turns all over the place and blends death metal and even heavy thrash. It gets a bit exhausting, but it does showcase a lot of relieving changes and even a real guitar solo somewhere in the middle. The Empowerment continues its relentless and heavy sonic barrage, and we finally end on the last track, The Coronation, clocking in at a brutal 12 minutes, 58 seconds.
Overall, this is a very long playing album of the story of creation, with an accompanying video of the unusual (The Promise), all of it broiled in extreme, scalding metal. “Diatheke” is a Greek word that appears in the New Testament, and has multiple meanings. It could mean “The Covenant Made By God”, which is mentioned in Matthew with “This is my blood of the covenant”. It could refer to a testament, or Will, which was evoked in Hebrews, or Diatheke could mean “A pact”. Whatever it is, it’s a thoughtful and appropriate name for these guys, and compliments this unique concept album.
John Wesley, Dallas McNeely and Michael Osborn are all former members of the progressive metal band Citadel from Texas (2012).
…And The Word Was God is mixed and mastered by Hunter Shaw and Sam Striker of Native Darkness Productions, with carefully curated artwork and design by Daniel Hambright of Elynia Productions and Gragoth of Luciferium War Graphics.
Stay tuned for the release in March by following them on social media:
Diatheke at Bandamp, via Rottweiler Records
