ACCVSED - Dealers Of Doom (Album Review)

ACCVSED - Dealers Of Doom
Released: August 1, 2025

Lineup

Tino Mehlig // Vocals
Valentin Noack // Guitar & Backup Vocals
Pascal Klebe // Bass
Christopher Lerner // Drums
Daniel Gorgievski // Guitar & Backing Vocals

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Dealers Of Doom. 

It’s an ambitious title that stops you in your tracks - a hypnotising lure that propels you into motion, lending an ear to just how deep into madness ACCVSED have descended. What you are presented with is not just reasoning, but a new standard that sees the Wiesbaden band unapologetically project both their deepest fears and soulful embrace of pain. These stories carry through, with the aid of protection over deflection, transcending feelings at their rawest and most palpable.

With strings that tear through your speaker, the album abruptly begins with ‘Day of the Locust’. A sharp cymbal crash ignites what is an instrumental warfare of almost industrial proportions. These sounds, although loud, prove futile at holding off lead vocalist Tino Mehling, who bares his teeth and claws through the gates like a lion eyeing off fifty juicy stakes on the other side. From the start, this band means business. The sounds are deep, with drums hitting like a blaring and radiating keg barrel, husky and reverberating. The intention becomes illuminatingly clear- to present feelings of anger and atrocity in their most primal and unpolished- to let these feelings do the talking.

The title track rips through imminently, this time with a solid emphasis on annihilating riffage. There is no room for zero to one hundred for ACCVSED, instead soaring at an inescapable feat of intensity and aggression. ‘Dealers Of Doom’ finds itself imbedded with such fun stylistic and creative choices that seep beyond the music, but peer in through the gaps in the form of a small sound, a technological buzz, and twisting flurry of consciousness- all adding a depth and storyworld to the album that present it visually as this grungy, post-apocalyptic, technical overtaking in my head. These conjured images made the album so moreish, and although it's not something inherently new, the nature of ACCVSED’s considered musical tradeship sees them building solid foundations for a revitalised take on the sound. 

‘Don’t Let Me Fall Apart’ continues to play with the notion of a dynamic auditory world, with moments of anthemic and stacked vocals, as well as lingering spectres mimicking the lines in your ear, becoming the forefront of this track. The song, within its chorus, hits far more solemnly and aids in showcasing Mehlig’s heavily fluctuating range. With the help of Noack and Georgievski, there are moments where these vocal spouts become so grizzly and hellish, they almost touch the deepest parts of you internally. The end of the track becomes an ode to the band’s conviction, a moment where rage and aggression are not the instigators, but the catharsis that can be born from brooding, and the beauty it can subsequently create. 

‘Total Eclipse Of Self’ turns the dial back up with violent screams, intoxicating you from every angle. Near, far, and everywhere in between, from the breaths to the peak of the scream, there is almost a streamline seen as you imagine them pouring out from the vocalist's mouth to your ear- they are real, raw, and defined by lived truth. The guitars in ‘Total Eclipse Of Self’ are worth noting, chugging heavily to a feat that redefines the stutters your own heart is going to, defining your pace for the duration of the track. Not before long, we get propelled into madness, before being ushered to an almost heavenly revelation of sound- grandiose and beautiful. 

In one of the more harsh deliveries on Dealers Of Doom, ACCVSED doesn't just load the bullets, but shoots them in a haphazard and unbothered frenzy. ‘Killer Of Minds’ is hostile and haunting, almost like a personification of the looming feelings of grief and guilt that become so consuming and controlling. Cleverly and not cheesy, the song is theatrical, with charged whispers aching in your ear like the devil himself. Laughs of utter insanity bellow in the background with approval of the bloodshed caused in the song. Christopher Lerner carries this track through the spiralling drums that lead the charge of absolute instrumental chaos- there is an invitation to ignore all conventions and go crazy… What could be better! ‘Killer Of Minds’ is a spectacle and is a clear personal standout from this body of work. 

Following this, ‘Avoider’ gives listeners their first taste of ballad, housing deep verses with ignited clean vocals, honing in on that extra special sing-along moment. The track itself is still jam-packed with the elements we've come to know of this band within the album, and it would be remiss not to mention the creative breakdown that takes place. But its fruits remain in the presence of this vulnerability and approach. There is a new offering of talent, even more than halfway through the album - and that is something to behold, always. ACCVSED are no one-trick ponies, and Dealers Of Doom sets out to prove this, with receipts in hand. 

‘Make Sure It Hurts’ follows suit and perhaps solidifies itself with some of the other big metalcore anthems of the past year. There is no denying that the sultry yet emotionally vulnerable anthem is the go-to track for most fans of the genre (think Bad Omens), but charged with a different kind of pain, that is what ‘Make Sure It Hurts’ has to offer. Diving into this recipe, with sprinkles of ACCVSED’s spices (whether that be personal storytelling or the sound signatures they have solidified in this album), the track is a noticeable standout for its palatability in the current world of releases. This album came with a tag line; that being the band knew they could be something more… something bigger, and I think this track has proven it. 

‘Senescence’ brings a new energy to the table, with an alluring soundscape that is dazzling in its hard, industrial, and technological elements, which, with every movement forward, become increasingly intoxicating. This is where the track found its primary strength for me, and in no particularly negative way, found me distracted and engulfed before I even clocked on to the foreground elements. My attention was promptly brought back at the initiation of the breakdown that, instead of feeding into the beefy narrative like usual, screeches and demands so much depth. 

In what seems to be a contentious title this year, ACCVSED have added their own ‘Never Enough’ to the table! Angry and fueled by a ravenous fire in the belly, this track rifles through with an in-your-face accusation of sorts. There is an anguish and vexation that rears its red-pointed dot at your forehead. Whilst easing up within the chorus, there is still an uncomfortableness that lingers throughout the duration of the track, and makes for some edge-of-your-seat listening. Ferociously, the guitars and drums dominate the end of this track, slamming and clanging, it seems to be leading you to the slaughterhouse. 

Dealers Of Doom concludes with ‘Obsidian’. It is as if the last few songs stepped back in their unbridled rage to charge this track with an intensity and swagger unseen before. Prancing through the song, there is an air of confidence that radiates from the very core of its inner workings. We have not merely seen the band grow from the release of their EP to now, but within the sequences of this very album- all culminating in this self-assured and irresistible decimation. Despite its ragefulness, ‘Obsidian’ does not leave these same feelings mustering, but offers a sense of closure that the journey has brought, an ode to the ten tracks and the catharsis they have given birth to. 

Dealers Of Doom is a supercharged debut seeping with heart-wrenched soul and overloads of real feeling that make the branches of connectivity all the more easy to navigate. With an overwhelming focus on converting the message, ACCVSED places their storytelling in the hands of processing; the response of sitting with one’s feelings, lamenting, and embracing the pains that make us stronger. Thus, it is saturated with an aggression, rawness, and at times, vulnerability that is so inviting yet staggeringly frightening. Within its ten tracks, the band has filtered through conventions within and beyond the scene that stands, and has thoroughly asserted the ethos they always believed - that they have a place in this music world. Dealers Of Doom is a not-to-be-missed debut from the world of German metalcore, and is sure to become a household staple too. 

Rating: 8/10
Dealers Of Doom is out August 1st via Arising Empire. Pre-order/save here
Review by Georgia Haskins @ghaskins2002