- Country: USA
- Style: Death metal
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Release date: 24 February 2017
Immolation don’t make bad albums, but Atonement is the one where everything they do best snaps into focus. Robert Vigna’s guitar work is as warped and dissonant as ever, those bent, falling leads that sound like a building slowly giving way, yet the songs are tighter and more direct than on some of their denser records. “The Distorting Light” is a short, brutal opener, and “When the Jackals Come” has a lurching, almost doom-paced main riff that becomes impossible to shake.
Ross Dolan remains one of the great death metal voices, deep but completely intelligible, and Steve Shalaty plays with real feel, never just bashing through the changes. “Fostering the Divide” and “Destructive Currents” show how much drama the band can wring out of tempo shifts, and the title track is a dark, stately highlight. The production, recorded at Millbrook Sound Studios, gives the guitars a thick, cavernous tone without burying the detail.
This sounds like a band that still has something to prove, and that’s rare. One of the best death metal records of the year, full stop.
Best tracks:
When the Jackals Come
Fostering the Divide
Destructive Currents
Atonement
Author’s rating: 8.9/10
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