Album Review: Savage Deity - Decade of Savagery
Reviewed by Sam Jones
So this time round we’re going to be making a trip right to the other side of the world, in this instance we’re in Thailand. Now we’ve seen metal increasingly crop up all over the world however Thailand is one nation that I haven’t seen many bands emanate from; in all honesty I didn’t even realise Savage Deity were even from Thailand until I began listening to this record and so I was all the more curious about what Decade Of Savagery could give me. As mentioned, Savage Deity hail out of Thailand, more specifically from Bangkok and Nonthaburi, and formed back in 2010. Their first Demo came out in 2011 followed by their first Single a year later, then came their debut album titled Amulet Of Sin in 2013. Various Splits followed suit as the band played prolifically alongside many bands of the Malaysian and Indonesian death metal and brutal death metal scenes, the latter of which has undergone a revered and respected brutal death metal identity in the last few years. 2017 saw the band release Beyond The Sanctum and aside from a live album and EP, it would be another four years before the band would once more drop a new album which brings us to where we are now. 2021 sees the band release their third full length record titled Decade Of Aggression, the album art for which is what initially drew me to it. So, let’s take a look at what some Eastern Death Metal can give us from a burgeoning but exploding scene.
There is a genuine touch of the old school to the band’s performance, it’s not simply a gloss of retro paint that the band have thrown over their songwriting or production. The album has a very believable, old school sound to its performance whereby if you were to send this album back to 1991 I’d bet money to it that people wouldn’t think this were a 2021 record. This album is perfectly primed to be enjoyed by all fans of Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Obituary etc; basically anyone who is fan of truly old school death metal and enjoys not only the style of production which Savage Deity champion but also the atmosphere as well. One of the trickier things to get right with retro soundscapes is that atmosphere, and here Savage Deity get it spot on. The actual intensity of their performance isn’t overly strong and I think it works to their benefit, leading people to actually take a step back and breathe all the while the band’s assault continues. It means we’re always able to breathe and understand where we are during any given track’s duration, appreciating the macabre atmosphere for what it is. This isn’t a record that’s going to pound you into the dirt and it’s made all the better because of it.
Another facet that’s a prime result of this insistence on an old school performance is the pacing. This record has a 40 minute runtime spread out over ten tracks, none of which harbour any superfluous sampling or ambient elements. Everything on album here is concisely constructed through the band’s own implementation. You may have noticed that while the band play death metal, it’s not exactly super fast. Savage Deity approach their songwriting as if they’re running in a marathon, not a race. They’re here to entertain you but they’re not going to try and outrun your attention; everything about their performance here and the flow at which they play at signify an attention to coherence. Tracks here are not all that long, around 3/4 minutes each owing to the record’s collective runtime but that hasn’t given the band an excuse to just run themselves into breakneck fury. Their playing is reserved, deliberate. It feels extremely well coordinated across the full band as they play and as they do so, you’re always able to follow where the song is and where the band are taking it next. There will be segments where the riffs are fairly broken down and feel nicely chopped up not merely for us to digest them better but to also slice up the flow of the music. Savage Deity are playing for atmosphere and immersion, not for speed and it’s this inversion of what you’d usually expect out of a death metal band that I really grew to respect.
Carrying on with the motif of keeping things straight forward, the drums exhibit a very down to Earth and very-non death metal approach to drumming for the most part. It’s only during the faster and more aggressive sections of the record when things are at their most volatile that the drums really roll out the more tenacious and pummelling nature of their presence. On the whole though it’s quite interesting how the band were more than happy to keep the drums playing very rudimentary and standard patterns like you would hear in any typical, almost commercial heavy metal act. We’ve well established by now that the band wanted to strip things down and keep their songwriting as minimalist as they could without jeopardising audience entertainment, but even so it’s amazing how basic the drums can be at times. If riffs can take their time here and there then the drums are pretty much constantly in a lax situation where you could imagine their drummer easily and nonchalantly performing without breaking a sweat, because there is no sweat to give here. Yet in spite of this very simplified drumming performance it works well for the band. It’s been argued that drums create a mental metronome in your head as to how you experience the tempo of a song or album; by this standard the drums really aid us in slowing our perception of the band’s sound. It’s not simply that the band are playing slower than usual, they themselves understand this and that’s why the drums are playing what they’re giving us. By giving us a steady tempo here they are solidifying their flow, ultimately giving us a performance that doesn’t just feel slower for the sake of it. It feels organic. It feels real.
When it comes to track variety, I can’t say that Savage Deity sports anything noteworthy of the like. From the moment you press play to the moment you finish with the record; you know exactly what you have received. There’s nothing hidden away in this record nor is there any deeper or grander idea that the band have in store for you, this album is as straight forward in what it’ll be giving you as its songwriting is. But frankly, owing to the style of songwriting the band give you that isn’t all that big of an issue. I think if their songwriting was actually faster and more intense it’d require some work in the future however because the songwriting is as steady and under control as it is, a lack of variety doesn’t hinder your experience of Decade Of Savagery. You know precisely what you’re going to get from the first few tracks alone and if someone were to complain then they frankly haven’t been reading the waters properly. Certainly, other bands would include something more left-field but that isn’t Savage Deity’s prerogative, their ambition with this record was to dish out music that’s enjoyable, easy to follow and feels evil. If that’s what a band wishes to go for then how we can criticise it? Besides, during my experience of this record it never occurred to me that the band were failing at any point because I was having too much fun getting lost in the old school malignancy they boast so easily.
In conclusion, some people might think that this record doesn’t really have a lot to go for considering that it’s songwriting does feel a little tried and true by the time you’ve reached the midpoint of the record. Yet in spite of what may appear to be a major drawback to the experience this album provides, I really did like this album because it never tried to trick me into thinking that it was anything else. Decade Of Savagery at no points tries to lie to you about what it is or what you’re going to find inside, it’s a very honest album experience in that respect. What you hear at the beginning is the same kind of songwriting and performance you’ll hear at the end; it may not make for the most memorable duration you’ll hear this year but it’s one that you may find yourself coming back to again and again simply because of how authentic and real it’s old school flair feels. It may not wow us, it may not give us anything we haven’t heard before but it’s reliable death metal that doesn’t try and force itself down our throats nor does it feel like it’s pandering to retro nostalgia either. Decade Of Savagery is an album by a band from Thailand that feels more real and true to old school aesthetic than the nation that birthed this form of extreme metal in the first place, we have to give credit where its due. So, on the whole, yeah I liked this album and I’m curious to see what Savage Deity do next.
