‘O mighty sub-genre, how you vex me. As our human need to bring order to chaos and make sense of complexity increases, so does the proliferation of the sub-genre and its many sub-sub offshoots. Where once only death metal stood, today, a plethora of choices exist. And because that most un-descriptively generalized tag wasn’t enough, we now banter over the finer nuances of tech death vs. old school vs. melodic, brutal, ultra brutal, and more. I’m not deriding the importance of sub-categories and their use in the metalverse as much as I’m highlighting the fact that sometimes, it’s refreshing to run across an album that strikes at the heart of a genre. Enter Turkey’s Diabolizer. After receiving a coveted 4.0 from Holdeneye in 2021 for Khalkedonian Death, Diabolizer returns to rape your ears with its second unholy metal of death platter, Murderous Revelations. Will this sophomore effort find Diabolizer taking a step back from their well-received debut, or will the onslaught continue, another clawing leap toward the upper echelon of death metal practitioners?
Murderous Revelations‘ deliciously demonic cover art reveals much about Diabolizer‘s brand of death metal. Straight out of the get-go of hell’s gate, “Into the Depths of Diseased Minds” sears the senses with swirling speeds and tricky time signatures, a maelstrom of riffs that set the stage for what the entirety of Murderous Revelations has in store. With its founding lineup intact and still repping pedigree—members hail from Hyperdontia, Burial Invocation, and Engulfed—Diabolizer merges its Deicidedly Cannibal Corpseish chunk-n-chugs perfectly with rifferous technical velocity that’s full of Nileistic Krisiunisms. Reminiscing on a younger me hearing the likes of Malevolent Creation and Krisiun for the first time, Murderous Revelations hit like a time capsule, instantly returning me to a simpler age. It is a solid step forward that shows, once again, how Diabolizer shines with plenty of pristine performances and the ability to merge many styles into something so purely death metal it defies sub-categorization.
Murderous Revelations by Diabolizer
Diabolizer‘s guitar hero duo of Can and Mustafa drop savage riff after savage riff (“Purulent Divinity in Black Flames”) and bring tons of technically tornadic, swirling solos to bear with vile virtuosity (“Seeds of the Dethroned”). Malik’s excellent finger-happy bass work provides many a Ramen noodle moment (“Bloodstream Bonegrinder”), complementing Abberant, who barbarously bashes through every track on Murderous Revelations, laying down a vicious sledge to the head style drummeling. Completing Diabolizer’s cadre of calamity is vocalist Abomination. His brutal, ground-shaking roars still harken to scene veterans like Glen Benton and Christian Älvestam, to be sure. Still, I hear a fair amount of Barney Greenway’s Napalm Death snarl in Abomination’s lower register, and this serves as a foil to his newly developed vomitous rasp (“Hogtied in Razorwire”), which took me aback at first but has grown on me with repeat listens.
Making a strong case that Diabolizer should be this Turkish quintet’s main gig, the songwriting on Murderous Revelations is top-notch and wastes nary a moment of its value-packed run time. A relentless onslaught that maintains a breakneck pace, Murderous Revelations provides listeners with nearly no air to breathe. The only moments of respite come at the outset of “Set the World Ablaze (“Infernal Dawn”) with its majestic, mid-paced riff and tremolo opening and the brief fade-in to “Deathmarch of the Murderous Tyrant,” which revs up and shoves its boot right back down on your windpipe. There’s so much I like about Murderous Revelations that I’ve been racking my brain, searching for some balancing critique to levy. So, while I’m still not 100% on board with Abominations’ new, raspy tone at times, that quibble is a minor one.
Diabolizer provides bree-bree-free brutality with layman’s terms technicality and enough chug-chugs to satiate my inner caveman. Murderous Revelations is death metal performed as Satan intended. It left my face in a state of perma-stank, and fans of Khalkedonian Death should be well-pleased. I’m incredibly blessed to be able to do what I do here, and the shine of my most recent status change still blinds me sometimes. I want to thank Holdeneye for introducing me to Diabolizer four years ago and for entrusting me to share my thoughts on Murderous Revelations.1 It’s a fantastic death metal album I’m sure to be talking about come year’s end.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Labels: Dark Descent Records | Me Saco Un Ojo Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: April 11th, 2025
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