Convulse are a band with quite the history. They started out as an 80s speed metal band under the moniker S.D.S., before changing their name to Convulse, releasing arguably one of the best known Finnish death metal albums from the early 90s with their debut ‘World Without God’, before continuing on to release one further (pretty forgettable) album ‘Reflections’, before pulling the plug in 1994. Much like many a band to call it quits after a short space of time, they had their cold and slimy corpse re-animated in 2012 (albeit with a couple of line-up changes), and have since been pretty efficient in making up lost time by way of a split with Disma, an EP, and now this, their 3rd full length album in the space of a year and a bit.
So, what does album number three offer you ask? Can they reclaim the past glories of their admittedly great debut album, or will they fall into the ‘should’ve stayed dead’ file? Well, their EP ‘Inner Evil’ certainly split opinions in the metal community (I thought it was decent, but not mind-blowing), but ‘Evil Prevails’ does see a marked return to form. Thankfully Convulse have avoided the trap of trying to ape past glory by re-arranging a few chords from old material and selling it off as new. This is prime death metal, with a lot of doomy, gloom chucked in, reminding me at times of Autopsy of old and new eras. The grimy bass lines, growls of insanity and twisted riffing sounds like it’s come from the same set of spotty teenagers that recorded ‘World Without God’, rather than a load of aged duffers trying to desperately to impress fans old and new years after their prime. It sounds fresh, like a new source of inspiration has been tapped in the band members and it really shines through in the material.
Thankfully it’s not even a case of ‘the first three tracks are the best, leave the rest’ which can also plague comeback albums. This has blasting brutality, the slow trawling of the darkest depths of doom, some groove (I’m thinking Wombbath groove, rather than Pantera groove), plenty of evil sounding acoustic interludes and generally a cool mix of good riffage and an overall tone of insalubriousness via their rotting chords and filth splattered arrangements. From the pounding opening of ‘We Kill Our Kind’, replete with tremolo picked blasting and sickened growls, to the ritualistic close of ‘Oceans of Dust’, soaking in eerie baby cries and tribal rhythms, this album reeks of the old school. Packed with twitching riffage, living dead vocals and a good kick of inspired song-writing, Rami Jämsä and co. really have done themselves proud here.
If Convulse continue to produce like this, hopefully they’ll stick around a little longer this time around. Well worth checking out.
(7.5/10 Lars Christiansen)
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