It’s been a very long time since the metal world heard from the Hoffman brothers following their departure from DEICIDE.  Using the pre-DEICIDE band name of AMON, they are back with a new style of death metal.  AMON is now more technical than the first four DEICIDE albums ever were.

Brian and Eric Hoffman go for a technical death metal sound that varies between off-time dissonance, melodies, more technical solos, and straight forward brutality.  It is cool to hear new sides of their playing after all these years.  Who knew they could solo like this?

However, there is so much shit packed into each song that the cohesion or flow is often broken or thrown out the window at seemingly random times.  There are plenty of good sounds throughout Liar in Wait though. And there’s no denying the KRISIUN-like approach to pacing and intensity. Don’t expect any breakdowns or any breathing time.

The production leaves something to be desired as it sounds like high quality demo recording rather than a record from two guitarists who helped to pioneer the death metal genre.  You will be hard pressed to find a more frequently used crash symbol in metal than on Liar in Wait.

It’s going to take many spins to remember much of what AMON has recorded due to the combination of riff overkill and more or less “standard” death metal stylings.

Overall, Liar in Wait is raw and rough in obvious places.  But the bottom line is that two guys that played on some of the most groundbreaking albums in metal should do better.  (Amon Records)