Earlier today, Dutch black/death metal band God Dethroned dropped their 12th full-length studio album, The Judas Paradox. To say it’s intense as all get out would be putting it a bit lightly, as these guys know how to lay the hammer down and tackle everything from the occult, to cosmic horror, to the human depravity of war.
Leading up to today’s release, we asked God Dethroned’s frontman Henri Sattler to break down the album track-by-track to give an in-depth look at each song. With every track having its place in the album’s overarching theme, we’re stoked that he said yes!
So without too much more preamble, here’s Sattler breaking down the tracks of The Judas Paradox. You can pick up your copy today, wherever you get your music!
The Judas Paradox
The title track of the album. This song delves into the story of Judas Iscariot, presenting the events surrounding the betrayal of Jesus Christ from his perspective. It’s a topic that has gripped the world since the story became public knowledge. Even in the Bible, there are conflicting accounts of this event. There’s a version where it’s said that Jesus could foresee the future, which portrays Judas as a victim of a scheme rather than the perpetrator.
Musically, it’s the most atmospheric and melody-driven song on the album, featuring lengthy guitar solos by guitar virtuoso Dave Meester.
Rat Kingdom
The first single from the album. The song speaks about the Vatican and the many secrets that are kept hidden there, away from the eyes of the world. And those who speak out disappear into the shadows below.
Musically, it starts with a classic pile of melody lines, making it both hymnic and bombastic. This is followed by a blast of fury with a black metal vibe and the Serpent King’s distinctive style of guitar solo, which stands out from the masses in the vein of the late Jeff Hannemann.
The Hanged Man
A song whose lyrics are based on the tarot card ‘The Hanged Man’. Lyrically, it’s very simple yet extremely catchy. I decided to use tarot cards as a basis for writing lyrics because I’m fascinated by them and their meanings, and it gave me the opportunity to write a different type of lyric that I hadn’t explored before. The Hanged Man tarot card represents sacrifice.
Musically, it’s a groovy death metal banger with a middle section that showcases Dave Meester’s skills as a virtuoso lead guitarist. In this song, you get the sense that the death metal version of Dave Murray is present in his utmost glory.
Black Heart
The instrumental intro to “Asmodeus,” with parts of the song played as if by a classical orchestra.
Asmodeus
A renewed version of the single titled “Asmodevs.” The song is about the oldest demon known to mankind. It features strong melodies combined with sheer brutality, along with great atmospheric parts and choirs. The beauty of this song is hidden in the many layers we put into the arrangements and in my rather unorthodox choice of harmonies in the guitar melodies. The average listener won’t notice the unusual lines, as they sound perfectly normal, but guitar players trying to figure out what I played will come across the unconventional notes.
Kashmir Princess
One could say this is the odd one out on the album. It’s a mid-paced song that thrives on atmosphere more than anything else. When we started writing the new album, the idea was that the songs would be based on conspiracy theories. “Kashmir Princess” was the first one we wrote, only to discover that these conspiracies were even more bizarre than we had imagined, so we stuck with just this one. The Kashmir Princess was the name of an airplane that was shot down in Asia, carrying many government officials. It was never found, leading to all kinds of theories. In our song, I combined this story with that of an actual princess to make the twist even crazier. Just listen.
Hubris Anorexia
Another song that combines brutality with atmosphere, and a beautiful blend of death and black metal. It’s also the song where Dave and I have guitar solos together.
Lyrically, the song talks about confinement and paying a high price to regain one’s freedom, much like the situation we were forced into during the COVID pandemic. This song essentially deals with my own experience of accepting vaccinations to be able to play live shows again during a time when there were still many restrictions. We were assured it would be perfectly safe, but when I became very ill due to the vaccinations, I started to realize that we had all been deceived. Now, three years later, I can finally say that my health is returning to normal, thanks to several treatments to restore my immune system to its pre-pandemic state.
The Eye of Providence
Probably the most technical song on the album, yet still easy to listen to. Once again, Dave delivers great guitar solos.
Lyrically, this song continues where we left off on “Illuminati.” The eye came into our concept on that album, and we gave it center stage in this song, with a twist between good and evil. The “Illuminati” album gave the band the opportunity to change our image towards freemasonry, Egyptian mythology, etc., after the three concept albums about World War One. I didn’t want to take the band back to our typical anti-religious themes, which we used before that time, so this new angle gave me a lot of freedom to write lyrics on topics I hadn’t explored before. Doing new things and writing songs without repeating ourselves is a high priority within the ranks of God Dethroned.
Hailing Death
A song that started out lyrically based on the tarot card ‘Death’, but later evolved into the story of crossing the river Styx. I found it difficult to write a whole song about the tarot card ‘Death’ as its meaning is rather simple, basically representing transformation and new beginnings. So while researching, I realized that combining it with the story of crossing the river Styx gave me the opportunity to make the song much more interesting and fitting to the mood the music created.
Musically, this song is very diverse, perfectly following the lyrics with atmospheres that take you from aggressive, upbeat tempos into atmospheric parts and strong melodies.
Broken Bloodlines
This is mainly a mid-tempo headbanger, with the exception of the beginning and the end. The lyrics speak about the hampered continuation of royal bloodlines due to inbreeding.
War Machine
This song leans toward brutal death metal more than any other on the album. However, the middle section is very melodic and quirky at the same time. The song is about a Japanese concentration camp during WWII where experiments were conducted on people. Unfortunately, this is a true story.
