It’s no secret that many of us here at Angry Metal Guy share an outsized fascination with progressive death metal. It has a seemingly infinite capacity for pathos and logos to raise one another to otherwise unreachable heights. It can also assume wildly different forms from artist to artist, which appeals to those who are always looking for something fresh and unexpected. This is what led me to Diatheke,1 from Dallas, Texas, and their debut …And the Word Was God. As a Christian group, their album’s concept is biblical, both literally and figuratively, representing the first moments of the universe’s existence through the final days of humanity. The scope of this concept is about as enormous as they come, but if any genre can pull it off, it would be progressive death.
It, then, caused me considerable consternation to discover that Diatheke married their prog death with metalcore. To be clear, I wouldn’t disparage something solely for having metalcore influence, but here the two styles clash hard. The musical compositions, which reach for—while never quite attaining—the dramatic, theatrical grandeur of Ne Obliviscaris, are often buried like the wicked during the Great Flood by a deluge of scalding screams, gruff growls, and cloying clean vocals. Elements of melodic death metal and deathcore attempt to bridge the gap between the two aesthetics with some success, but they tend to devolve into chugging breakdowns peppered with double bass. Congruous unions of the fundamentally opposite objectives of prog and metalcore might exist somewhere, but this is not one of them.
. . .And The Word Was God by Diatheke
It doesn’t help that …And the Word Was God mainly inherited the less desirable attributes of both its parent genres. It has some of progressive death’s intricacy but little of its overarching cohesion. Diatheke discharges a slew of ideas that are rarely borne to fruition, yielding song fragments that are stuck together haphazardly. “The Coronation” opens with a regal guitar and synth melody befitting of the song’s title, only to inexplicably rip it away for a monotonous growled verse atop nondescript riffs. Many other transitions are navigated in like manner with the grace and subtlety of a snowplow. Things might have been salvageable if more of the individual components commanded the hooky sensibilities of metalcore but, aside from a chorus in “The Coronation” and a resurfacing guitar line in “The Creation,” there are no recurring features to cling to for memorability across the hour runtime.
These fundamental flaws all but smother the bright spots scattered throughout …And the Word Was God. There are some genuinely compelling moments—like the back-to-back guitar and bass solos in “The Redeemer”—but in their isolation, they wither like branches without a vine. Frustratingly, most of the instrumentation, which ranges from inoffensive to decent, is muddied by the vocals. Three band members (Peter Watson, John Wesley, and Michael Osborn) are credited with vocals, though the problem isn’t too many cooks in the kitchen so much as the cooks preparing the wrong order. The screams that permeate …And the Word Was God sound out of place in this type of music, distracting and detracting from any emotion the listener might have otherwise gleaned. Conversely, the singing in the intro of “The Promise” and the conclusion of “The Creator” offer glimpses of how impassioned the album could have been with a more befitting vocal approach.
In the end, …And the Word Was God doesn’t have enough redeeming qualities to overcome its glaring macro and micro issues. It’s likely too disjointed to appeal to the progressive death crowd and not immediate enough to please metalcore enthusiasts. While there are worse sins for a young band than struggling to rein in their ambitions, it’s difficult to enjoy something this unfocused and self-conflicting. But with youth comes the inherent potential for growth if Diatheke can concentrate their efforts and attention. There is an audience out there for them; they just have to pick one.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Rottweiler Records
Websites: diathekerr.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/diathekemusic
Releases Worldwide: March 21st, 2025
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