Decapitated stands out within the pantheon of death metal Gods. They are simply one of those gatekeepers of this sub-genre — the one bridging the old with the new. The cross-over blend of old school death metal meets the newer 200 time-signatures-per-min technical brawl.

Recovering from a tumultuous past and successfully restructuring the sound is not trivial. Anticult is easily among the best illustrations of those stunning groovy prog elements within death.

Dimebag Darrell like riffing, downtuned uniquely melodic leads, and vocals bordering between screams to growls. Decapitated successfully integrates groove metal into their pristine Polish death terrain. Seamless switches between musical traits are numerous, and they span divergent eras — from Entombed like leads to Gojira like towering riffs. With everything layered on top of precision blast beats, these compositions are as sharp as a guillotine. Getting Decapitated has not been this blissful in a long time. The band has evolved from Vitek era tech death, but they are still absolutely about adapting old school structures to stunningly creative musical contexts.

By © Markus Felix (talk to me) [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons