{"id":54756,"date":"2017-02-24T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=54756"},"modified":"2017-04-29T17:01:04","modified_gmt":"2017-04-29T17:01:04","slug":"album-review-ex-deo-the-immortal-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-ex-deo-the-immortal-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"EX DEO – The Immortal Wars (2017) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

EX DEO
The Immortal Wars<\/strong><\/span>
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\nNapalm (2017)<\/span>
Rating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Battle metal, make no mistake about it. Listening to The Immortal Wars<\/em>, the third full-length record by Canada\u2019s Ex Deo, is tasting the blood that flows from the arenas and battlefields in and around Rome, and instead of running away in fear, you don a helmet and sword, and join the fight.<\/p>\n

For those not in the know, Ex Deo is the side project of Kataklysm frontman Maurizio Iacono, of which the violent and bloody history of Rome serves as the band\u2019s primary inspiration for. Although Ex Deo was placed on hiatus in 2014, it was reactivated in 2015 and now, in this the year of our unholy father, 2017, Ex Deo has unleashed The Immortal Wars<\/em> and in true warrior fashion, it seeks out and kills the weak. You\u2019ve been warned.<\/p>\n

The Immortal Wars<\/em> is part symphonic, historical, and just all out crushing out metal. I like the balance that it strikes here \u2013 just enough symphonic and historical to balance the record perfectly, allowing the album to tell its story without one overpowering the other.<\/p>\n

A great example of this is \u2018Cato Major: Carthago delenda est!\u2019 which in and of itself is an entire story to tell, a record to make, a movie to shoot. The soundbytes throughout this song accentuate and help bring it to life in, dare I say, epic manner? It\u2019s a big song with an even bigger sound and a lot of moving parts, but the vastness of \u2018Cato Major: Carthago delenda est!\u2019 works without getting lost inside itself.<\/p>\n

What I glean from this record is that it\u2019s a much more cohesive and hard hitting record than past efforts. This one is a true arrow to the heart of the enemy; it\u2019s an armour piercer. That\u2019s not to say that Romulus<\/em> (2009) or Caligvla<\/em> (2012) weren\u2019t great efforts, indeed they were. It\u2019s just that The Immortal Wars<\/em> is that magnus opus that I think Ex Deo has been moving towards, very much like an army on a battlefield, all calculated movements, which Romulus<\/em> and Caligvla<\/em> were, bringing them to the band right here to this point in time.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of standout tunes on this record. \u2018Cato Major: Carthago delenda est!\u2019 is an instant favourite just because of its truly epic nature and scale, and how well that production translated on record. \u2018Ad Victoriam (The Battle Of Zama), \u2018The Rise Of Hannibal\u2019, and \u2018The Spoils Of War\u2019 are heavy enough to crush tanks on the field and battle, and if played loud enough, jolt the Earth off axis.<\/p>\n

The Immortal Wars<\/em> is a killer album start to finish, and the massive scope that this record plays on and subsequently pulls off is nothing less than spectacular. This is symphonic, 300-style, movie type metal that deserves serious mention and attention amongst the metal masses. Spread the word, Ex Deo is a band to be reckoned with and The Immortal Wars<\/em> has already made my top ten list for the year, and we\u2019re not even at the six month mark yet.<\/p>\n

Theron Moore<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EX DEOThe Immortal Wars Napalm (2017)Rating: 9\/10 Battle metal, make no mistake about it. Listening to The Immortal Wars, the third full-length record by Canada\u2019s Ex Deo, is tasting the blood that flows from the arenas and battlefields in and around Rome, and instead of running away in fear, you don a helmet and sword, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ex-deo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54760,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54756\/revisions\/54760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}