As far as the other 19 bands listed on Metal Archives going by the name Revenge are concerned they may as well just do one and fuck off. Yes harsh words but we are dealing with a band here who are renowned as being one of the most extreme in the world. You can laugh that one off if you wish but the Canadians do live up to the premise and then some and have been obliterating listeners since they first shat out their Attack.Blood.Revenge EP back in 2001. Doggedly keeping up their attack through 5 full length albums now those that can take their uncompromising sound should know exactly what to expect from the terrible duo of James Read and Vermin but it still comes as a bit of a shock after having stood away from the band for a while being confronted by the sheer power behind things on pressing play on a new album.
There seems to be a bit more about them this time around though. The contorted sounds that literally volley out the speakers are stranger and more bestial than ever before. Opener ‘Scum Defection (Outsider Neutralized)’ illustrates this quickly with some reverberating sonic grunts repeated like a beast with its tail caught in a vice. Not that the track started the album off with any finesse, it just blasts in with everything at once. Can you call this black metal? Possibly not the war metal tag has been used before but if you are adept at fathoming out what is going on within the scathing and unrelenting attack there are even facets of grindcore and D-Beat crust going on in it all. It’s Extreme with a capital E and once you get over that fact you may enjoy it all the more. The vocals have some higher pitched incessant yapping sounds that gnaw away and shake you without any mercy in the background as well as the occasional low guttural beastly parts. Occasionally a shredding solo is fired out, some doom laden beats echo and things flail away with the drums punching you constantly in the face as everything flies away abrasively in a whirlwind of utter devastation. I do like the occasional slower breaks like the one on second number ‘Shock Attrition (Control in Decline)’ where for a second or two everything bounces around like an uncoiling spring. I’m not going for a track by track here it is just too chaotic to try and explain everything you are likely to hear and to be honest the 41 minute listening experience is just one constant deluge of ferocity.
Sound here is full bodied making it all the more bruising. You can forget any tinny black metal demos of old, things are well and truly beyond that now and as guitars fly up and down the scale and the drums crack away you really get the full experience of everything, as do the poor neighbours if you turn it up loud (as you will). The weird noises here though, at times they sound like a satanic DJ has taken a track and backward masked and scratched it contorting the vocals to quite inhuman sounds. It all works fantastically though and you find yourself listening out intently for the next echoing death belch. When it finally finishes you are going to want to do one of two things with this album if you have made it to the end, play it again or take it into a room and shoot it, sealing off the door on leaving so it can never be subjected again. Needless to say I love it and have been playing over and over again; what that says for my sanity Satan only knows?
(8/10 Pete Woods)
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