Review by Saxy S for Summoning the Lich - Under the Reviled Throne (2024)

From St. Louis, Summoning the Lich are making death metal for scene kids. Now that might sound like a humongous insult, but The Black Dahlia Murder have been around and always managed to stay hip with those hardcore kids. So it's only natural that someone would come along and double down on this audience.

Many other metal forums say that Summoning the Lich are just Black Dahlia Murder worship, but I'm not sure I get that impression from Under the Reviled Throne. There are a lot of fast moving, technical passages here; plenty of high intensity riffage, blast beats and alternating between death metal howls and deathcore screeching. What Summoning the Lich does well with this album is not making these songs just sound like technical wanking and have some well composed songs on display. They might not be the most memorable in hindsight, but in the moment they sound well composed with some detail given to melodic dominance. It almost gives me a hint of Allegaeon in its presentation, which I was certainly not expecting. The breakdowns are not as intimidating as the modern deathcore breakdown; they act more as momentary reprieve's before the heavier death metal returns, which is how breakdowns should be incorporated into death metal anyways. 

Under the Reviled Throne is an album that shows a lot of promise on the outset, but in execution, the album seems to have run out of tricks in the bag about half way through. I was getting tired of the triplet feel transition on every song, I was getting frustrated that almost ever track followed the same structural format, and I really wasn't a fan of how Summoning the Lich disguised this lack of variety through key shifting. The bass lines are also severely lacking and makes the mix of this record feel less heavy as a result. It's a decent album with some good moments, but not worth the full runtime given how repetitive it becomes.

Best Songs: Reviled Crystal Wielders, The Carrion Fleet, The Void Gate