UMUR
"World Without God" is the debut full-length studio album by Finnish death metal act Convulse. The album was released through Thrash Records in July 1991. Convulse formed in 1988 under the S.D.S. monicker and originally played speed metal, but they changed their name to Convulse in 1990 and their sound with it. The "Resuscitation of Evilness" demo was released in November 1990 and led to Convulse being signed to Thrash Records for the release of "World Without God". After releasing their second full-length studio album "Reflections (1994)" through Relapse Records the band split-up. The Thrash Records copies of "World Without God" are rare these days, but Relapse Records picked the album up for a reissue in 2010. The reissue features the material from the "Resuscitation of Evilness" demo as bonus tracks along with a couple of live tracks.
Stylistically "World Without God" continues the old school Scandinavian death metal style initiated on the "Resuscitation of Evilness (1990)" demo. The sound production hasn´t improved since the demo. Quite the contrary actally, and "World Without God" is a dark and pretty murky sounding album. The guitar tone could have pospered from a bit more punch, but as far as early 90s Scandinavian death metal productions go, this one is decent enough. The band are fairly well playing too. The growling vocals are a bit one-dimensional in nature, and a few more catchy phrases and a more intelligible singing style could have made that part of the album a bit more interesting, but as it is the vocals are pretty decent. The material is raw and reasonable powerful and while not all tracks stand out equally much, the quality of the songwriting is decent enough.
So upon conclusion "World Without God" isn´t the most unique sounding death metal album from the early 90s, but it´s a solid debut album by Convulse and it´s a recommendable listen to fans of the genre. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.