Rating: 7.7

Country: Poland

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Old Temple

Track list:
1. Intro 01:14
2. Nails Sticking Offensive 02:15
3. Convicted By Destination 02:29
4. Praying To Liar 01:34
5. The New Age of Death 03:10
6. Deviant Prophet 02:29
7. Panzer Crusade 03:49
8. Apocalyptic Protection 03:48
9. Postnuclear Encyclica 04:31
10. Conceited God 02:59

Total playing time 28:18

Band Website: Deception

Deception - Nails Sticking Offensive

Marcin "Deather" Malczyñski - Bass, Vocals
Pawe³ "Aggareth" Dusza - Guitars
Dominik "August" Augustyn – Drums

Deception's debut Permanent Torment proved to be one of my successful try-out CDs. It was an overlooked pure Polish death metal album which sounded like early Vader on fast-forward. So maddeningly fast was its music that it would even give the Brazilian death metal hordes a run for their money. Their drummer often played faster than a drum machine – I personally verified it with my yellow Casio stopwatch. It was a delightfully insane if slightly immature album, but one well-packed with plenty of enjoyable hooks and leads. When I heard of their new album, I giggled inwardly (the metal way) at the thought of how they were going to top it. And when I actually heard it, it took me a couple of slaps from my metalhead friends to get convinced that it was the same band. What happened here?

Apparently, on a full moon night, near a lonely bus stop on the outskirts of some Polish city, Deception were diabolically raped by black metal. That's what happened here. Mind you, the word 'rape' in extreme metal always has a positive connotation. Post that horrific incident, Deception, my $6 discovery, changed their style and almost got away with fooling me. Not once did the ingrates think of me or the prevalent metal trend where black metal bands turned into death metal and almost never the other way round. On their third album, Nails Sticking Offensive, Deception play an unabashed and rather outrageous hybrid of blasphemous black/death metal that brings to mind the exploits of the unsung locals Anima Damnation, pompous overrated twits Behemoth circa Satanica, and accomplished dual-genre bands, Impiety and Belphegor. The music herein is imbued with a sense of chaos that is all too overwhelming. Brain-frying production suited for just that won't help you come to terms with it easily. Fuzz-swathed guitars bluster through your speakers, vocals now mostly in the form of acidic vomits splash across your room walls permanently disfiguring beautiful faces on your posters, and frantic percussion that shakes the foundation of your home with the intent of bringing it down way below. Their music will completely ruffle you and its effect won't wear off for days at end; it will feel like the opposite of a lovelorn hangover.

At first it won't make any sense at all. Slowly, as your ears get raped, they begin to hear things for you more clearly. Structure is seemingly, no positively non-existent; Black and Death metal bits are scattered all over the place, their charred bodies overlapping each other in obscene positions. There is no saying of when what will happen, except that you will suffer and very painfully. Deception can be unpredictable with that - they may even regulate their seemingly uncontrollable mayhem like in “Apocalyptic Protection” when a solemn black metal riff is being carried out. And just when you were getting tempered with the expected alternating twin black/death bursts, you have “Postnuclear Encyclica” which is almost solely a black metal track with its riffs having the potency to melt your skin along with the bones it's so shamelessly clinging onto. Then you have the following song exploding in grand death metal style, before of course it is overridden with black-natured filth. There is however one thing the band frequently likes to indulge in: after spilling enough gallons of blood, it plays the imperious marching riffs of the Polish death metal elites Excommunion that are usually accompanied by sneering demonic vocals. Excellent stuff.

A shocking progression from their debut, Nails Sticking Offensive is a terrifying, skull-splintering, skull remnant-stamping album. Not since Belphegor's Necrodeamon Terrorsathan have I heard a black/death album this furious and driven, though admittedly it is too chaotic and haphazard for its own good. Fans of this style of music are advised to sell their souls to buy it at once.

April 30th, 2007