An uprising concoction of better than average riff-writing here, contrary to their predecessor 'Day of Reckoning' (2011). The electric flame blows you away in the music and well thought out musicianship with this one. They really emphasized back-up vocals alongside Schmier, plus the aggression is all there for an awesome thrash metal output. It was solid all of the way through, not just a few tracks, but overall a good sound quality to the recording. There were some contributors to the lead department i.e. Harry, their ex-lead guitarist. Mike totally is inept in the lead department. Destruction should know by now that incorporating competent lead guitarists is a must, otherwise it takes away from the magic put into the guitar-work.

The lyrics were more thought out than previous albums and it wasn't the main focus about the total anti-Christianity on here, they put in some pride in this department, so the words fit in nicely with their efforts to make a total annihilation musically speaking. My contention is that they backed up their words nicely to blend into the harsh lyrical conceptual viewpoints. They mainly seemed to focus on music that's not borrowed from the past, just aggression unwittingly ousted in their songs here on 'Spiritual Genocide'. Totally uncompromising release as pretty much every Destruction release ever put out. The overall intensity is super high, their emphasis on back-up vocals make 'Spiritual Genocide' more likeable and uncompromising.

I can't see anyone's viewpoint knocking this album, I didn't find it boring, I found it totally diverse. Production was definitely positive and well mixed amassing each guitar, vocal and drum in synchrony. Schmier leads the vocal department and seems very inspirational with Mike dishing out fast riffs and thick crunch tone distortion that simply kicked ass. The music that he came up with here is like no other Destruction release. He didn't fall behind on his part leading the way with the writings the music simply kicked butt and was entirely uncompromising. His aggression fit the vocals and the drums were right on cue and way solid. Possibly one of their best drummers here of all time. Even though I thought highly of pretty much all of their drummers except for Tommy during the earlier days.

I think that the band stressed a lot of things here musically speaking and they really needed to make a comeback with 'Day of Reckoning' falling into the mediocrity department. This is what's found on 'Spiritual Genocide': purely new hardcore thrash based sound tonality and really a great conglomeration of madness when they put everything together on this release. They needed to up it with their 21st century writings to match that of other bands such as Sodom, which they sure as hell surpassed 'Epitome of Torture' (2013), Sodom's latest. This one simply blows it away. However, Testament did a great justice than this one on 'Dark Roots of the Earth' (2012), but 'Spiritual Genocide' emphasizes more on rhythm guitar that will just leave you in awe. Kind of like some construction done to amass the thrash metal output here.

I always favored Schmier over all thrash metal vocalists, his voice doesn't have a whopping effect on change over the years, but I think that he does the band justice ever since their return to the thrash metal community in I think early 2000. What's best on here overall are these points which I tried to make clear: originality, aggression, strong lyrical topics, great production, appropriate back up vocals along with Schmier's main vocals, Mike's well constructed thrash metal guitar crunch sound and mixing that featured a definite impact on the all encompassing effort on all of Destruction's effort here. They really needed to up the aggression which they did and those lead guitars by Harry were well put together and don't kill the album's integrity.

I didn't find that any song on here was boring or lacked in any respect, every track here was kick ass, and don't listen to the naysayers dropping this album in a negative fashion. It is totally uncalled for because there were balls on this one, hoping that their next release will oust this one even more so! But for now, it's going to stand in their discography as one of their finest newer release that hasn't been reviewed enough to spread the word about the albums integrity. If you've been following Destruction for a long while, definitely check out the song 'Carnivore' and you'll hear the aggression, the aura of the album and that song they did a video for. So judge for yourself to see if it all makes sense with this text I've been uttering about the album. Definitely worth checking out!

Rating: 8 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
10/29/2013 19:31