It’s been three years since we heard ‘Albion Thunder’ from these very heavy metal bastards. At the time they had a well known singer Ben Ward who was kind of on loan from his better known group Orange Goblin. He was never meant to be a permanent addition to the band and on leaving the rest of the group who between them comprise of members past and present from Sabbat, Skyclad, The Clan Destined, Iron Monkey, Consumed (etc) had to find a pretty formidable replacement. That they did in the form of an unknown to the metal world, Al Osta. I say unknown to music but not necessarily to other fields within the public eye as he is a mixed martial arts fighter. Having said that he is obviously formidable in more ways than one and thankfully has a voice to match. Since joining the group Ravens Creed have released one EP and played quite a few shows proving the strength of the new line up. Unfortunately I missed them at the recent Damnation festival but caught them literally tear the stage up at High Voltage Festival last year and prove themselves along with Neurosis as the joint heaviest band on the bill!

The album art work which has a central image of a talon ripping apart one of those annoying fish symbols Christians put on their cars would look great on vinyl due to the amount of work that has gone into all the smaller characters around a flaming pit of fire that it is arising from. Some of these characters no doubt are central to the lyrical themes of these 16 songs, which again have some very good word played titles a thing about the previous album that really stood out. When I say 16 songs don’t worry if you are looking for a quick fix, this is fast and bloody furious stuff and they are done and dusted in just under the half hour mark.

After air raid sirens bring us in to ‘The Power’ the glory follows with a track that pretty much sums up the whole album. ‘Bashed In’ is exactly what this half hour is going to leave you feeling. There have already been Slayer fuelled guitars and thrash heavy flurries that would have many a pit on the point of collapse. added to these Al’s throat shredding vocal stance which strikes as being smack in the middle of things (neither particularly low or high) and this has already stomped all over you. Injecting some deathly riffling into things this is ticking all the extreme sub genres you can think of but it still has that underlying MotorbastardVenomous dished up with a thick layer of crust about it that we got on the first album. Despite the heftiness there is also some doom fuelled slow bits and an underlying melody found on the likes of ‘Bloody Luxury.’ One of the excellent titles that non Brits may not get is ‘Wiccan Wanderers.’ I can’t help wondering what place they have in the pagan football league but they certainly score here amidst some thick chugging guitars but it is the next rapidly fired out number ‘War Cauldron’ that really has things boiling over as it explodes in a bruising welter and literally pummels you to bits. The chunky guitar assault on the intriguingly entitled ‘Rat King Rosary’ reminds a little of the no doubt long forgotten Bomb Disneyland and there are times when guitarist Steve Watson’s time in Cerebral Fix certainly burst through here. There is some Discharge and GBH found amongst the self explanatory ‘Kick To Kill’ too and punk is definitely cited amidst this seething cauldron of extremity.

On first couple of listens this is so fastly flung it’s slightly tricky for the songs particular nuances to come through, after this though the likes of ‘Inappropriate Eulogy’ with its groove heavy stomp get through as does the full on gallop (sorry) of ‘Horse Fucker,’ which despite what you may think strikes as having a particularly brutal anti-religious lyrical stance. I really enjoy the down tempo parts of ‘The Slaughterhouse’ with cackling laughter sounding like it could be from The Evil Dead; it’s a pure Necrophagia moment. It’s a race towards the finish and last song ‘Unleash The Rat Bashers’ will give you an intro that if you do not recognise you have no right even being here and then pretty much gives you one last bash over the head for good measure.

I have probably listened to this a lot more than other albums lately and the short running time has certainly helped me do this, sometimes less is indeed more. If you are looking for something heavy, fast as feck and ultimately extreme just like they used to make it this will certainly deliver the goods.

(7/10 Pete Woods) 

 

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