Revenge are not exactly a band bursting at the seams with
surprises, all it takes is one look at Revenge’s formulaic album art and even
album titles to know that. And actually that’s one of the things that make
Revenge cool. They shirk progress, and they don’t bullshit you about it. Why
bother progressing, after all, when you are one of the filthiest, most primal
war metal bands on the face of the planet? And yet somehow I sense a slight
maturity has formed in the band when I compare this with their other records.
Are those riffs juxtaposed in a slightly more effective way? Do the trudging
“war march” breakdowns crush you more than on the other albums? Of course, it’s
impossible to tell through all the cacophony, but I suspect this is the case.
For those of you who don’t know, Canada’s Revenge play a
barbaric concoction of black and death metal, and can be lumped into the war
metal crowd with the likes of Conqueror and Bestial Warlust for their sheer
relentless savagery. Many think Revenge are exemplary of this style, and I’d
probably count myself one of them. Revenge seem to be just a bit nastier, a bit
more feral, a bit more high on war. And if you are new to the band, this is a
very good place to start. In fact I would say this is the best Revenge album,
the one that can hold a person’s attention longer than the others. It doesn’t
fully disintegrate into a chaotic mess of instruments apparently playing in a
completely uncoordinated fashion - one of their main problems in earlier
releases – and yet it still keeps their sense of ugly, demonic havoc trve to
the core. Although I made a joke about the unintelligible cacophony before, I
believe what Revenge have done to achieve this improvement is add a few more
breakdowns to anchor the listener between the relentless, pummeling savagery
witnessed elsewhere in the songs, thus creating a more coherent structure and
general listening experience. They’ve also cleared up the muddiness of the
production enough to actually make out the riffs, and now that we can hear
them, we know: They kick a lot of fucking arse.
In short: Revenge, of all bands, managed to surprise me and
release their best work at a point in their progression when things could have
gotten monotonous. Every instrument sounds great, every track rocks. Experience
the fury of Revenge without getting bored by the third song!
Standout tracks: "Pride
Ruination (Division Collapse)", "Banner Degradation (Exile or Death)"
Score: 9.0
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