Unholy Cult is New Yorker Immolation’s fifth unholy chapter of their metal saga. The band has an impressive following in the underground and one could even say they’re a cult band. They've played old school death metal from the beginning and I didn’t expect them to play anything else but old school death metal with this new release. The band has a strong imagery on the metal scene also due to their long collaboration with German painter Andreas Marshall who has ever outdone himself painting the cover art for all of their four previous albums, and this one is no exception to the rule. After all, why should the band have shitty cover art?

Although worshiped in the underground as one of the pioneers of the genre, the band has never been able to surpass this state, probably due to the lack of constancy in their release schedule. Dawn Of Possession was released in 1991 and the band needed five years to release their deceiving sophomore album Here In After in 1996. Then three more years were necessary for the band to release their impressive third album Failure For Gods in 1999. Suddenly within a year the band released its fourth opus Close To A World Below in 2000, which brought them a step further towards excellence.

The music shines as always, since the band has not changed their style over the years, and is an uncompromising brutal and intense death metal in the typical American style. One can say the music is getting repetitive over the years, which I partially agree with, but the band manages to come up with something great every time. This time again the band comes up with eight songs of brutal death metal with lots of atmosphere and doom touches along with their intense rhythmic aggression, without sacrificing the brutality that stands as of one of Immolation’s finest trademarks. If you listen to their previous album you’ll find very few differences in Ross Dolan’s vocals, which is an important trademark of Immolation’s music too. The three guys behind the guitars deserve a mention for their excellent rhythm guitar work and most particularly their ingenious lead work throughout the album which stands out as one of the highlights on this album. Drummer Alex Hernandez, who replaced Graig Smilowski between Here In After and Failure For Gods (Immolation's first and only line-up change), again provides some very irresistible rhythmic pounding behind his drumkit.

I have always mentioned throughout my numerous reviews that I don’treally care much about the lyrics, but since I am a total atheist, I can’t help but smile at the truth behind some of their lyrics.

Every time I buy such an album now that I am over 30, I always ask myself whether or not I will still be listening to that kind of music in five, ten or fifteen years from now. Well, I have come to the conclusion that I really don’t know about it, and I really don’t care about it since what really matters is the present day. So, do as I did, buy this unholy piece of aggression and follow the cult of Immolation because with no doubt this album is their best so far.