The last few years the Dutch death/thrash formation God Dethroned has been through a lot of line-up changes. But since Lair Of The White Worm there have been no alterations. With new members come new influences, and that’s why the last three God Dethroned albums combine the old-school God Dethroned with these new and fresh influences. The vocals by The Serpent King are always the first thing that really identifies God Dethroned.

The Toxic Touch is the perfect follow-up album of Lair Of The White Worm. On this new album you can hear a lot of modern-styled melodic death metal (like In Flames is known for), mixed with the old God Dethroned. A lot of blast beats were exchanged for beautiful mid-tempo melodies, expect a lot of melodic solos as well.

Maybe the real old-school death metal fans will think this release is not fast or brutal enough. I had the opportunity to see the band live a few days ago and I can tell you that the combination of old and new songs sounds really diverse and would interest a pretty wide audience.

The songwriting on ‘The Toxic Touch’ is great, as it was on their previous albums. The keyboards on a few songs give an extra evil touch. This album is a must-have for anyone who’s into modern thrash/death but also love the old-school touch. God Dethroned is totally back in this (what seems to be a) steady line up. The `Toxic Touch` is the perfect prove of this fact.