Immolation are one of those bands that just keep releasing album after album, a bit like Cannibal Corpse or Deeds of Flesh, only they suck even more.

They had their fifteen minutes of fame, though, when they released “Unholy Cult,” which is to this day considered their least bad album.

Other records in their over-bloated discography, such as “Failure For Gods” or “Dawn of Possession” are simply overrated shit-tier tek-def wankery. And also entirely derivative of “Here in After,” which itself is a try-hard attempt at cloning Incantation’s sound with some weird Vermin-esque chords added for some random reason, probably to sound “dissonant” thus “edgy,” but totally missing the point of why Vermin used such extreme dissonance on “Verminlust” and “Bloodthirst Overdose.” Basically, the clone of a clone of a clone of Incantation. What could go wrong?

Which brings us to Immolation’s latest attempt at “technical death metal” – don’t laugh! – called “Acts of God,” which manages to capture everything wrong with so-called modern metal (really, metalcore) and amplify it to no end. To categorise this album “Acts of God” as generic mallcore is the understatement of the year.

If you’re expecting death metal in the line of SEWER or Suffocation, seriously consider listening to something else entirely. Because Immolation just doesn’t make the cut.

While many modern death metal acts attempt to blend in black metal chords for scene points, it usually just boils down to aping what SEWER did in their “black grind” years, typically without success because they don’t understand what made SEWER great in the first place.

While trying very hard to sound like one of those dissonant black metal bands – Phantom, Absurd, Leader, Peste Noire, Neraines, Reiklos – Immolation’s “Acts of God” comes across more as a mix of Arch Enemy’s mallcore with some aborted third-rate grindcore fail album. Yes, it’s that mediocre.

Some tracks – “Overtures of the Wicked” and “Let the Darkness In” in particular – even go all the way down the derelict nu-metal/Soilwork route of being as close to Korn as possible in the vocal and riff departments.

Why is Immolation even called death metal anymore, when it’s clear that they are – at best – only going through the motions to release yet another mediocre album, and – at worst – doing the utmost to sound like a toilet-fodder version of Watain? Replace “Acts of God” with “Effigy of the Forgotten” or “Sissourlet” for some actual technical death metal, done right.