God Dethroned: Henri Sattler (vocals, guitar); Susan Gerl (guitar); Henke Zinger (bass guitar); Roel Sanders (drums).

Dutch death metal monarchs God Dethroned are one of the few metal bands that consistently challenge themselves. Be it progressive composition or simply their brutal delivery, each album is always a surprise. And PASSIONDALE, their eighth, is no exception. Veering away from anti-Christian storytelling, the band offers a conceptual album recounting the horrors of life in the embattled small villages of Ypres and Passchendaele, which between them saw 900,000 casualties during World War I. The band's dark musicianship accentuates the solemn nature of the story, creating in turn a truly melodic death metal masterpiece.

It seems like a prerequisite of sorts nowadays: bands that fit within the extreme metal subgenre are expected to tackle some pretty heavy-duty (and often gnarly) subject matter in their lyrics -- that is, if you can decipher the lyrics through all the growls. On this 2009 release by God Dethroned, Passiondale, the lads from the Netherlands have penned a concept album of sorts, focusing entirely on World War I. The impetus for the album arose when the bandmembers often found themselves hanging out in the Belgian town of Ypres, which during World War I saw many a bloody battle between the Germans and the Allied Forces. While the lyrics may tell a story, the music is exactly what you'd expect from God Dethroned -- or just about any extreme metal band for that matter -- as evidenced by such tracks as "Under a Darkening Sky" and "Poison Fog." Images of war and the sounds of metal do battle throughout Passiondale. ~ Greg Prato

CMJ - "On PASSIONDALE, God Dethroned manages to give each track its own unique and memorable sound while maintaining the album's World War I theme, successfully building an epic war story track by track."