Back in 2000, a band called ‘Cryptic Warning’ was formed in Boston, Massachusetts. Inspired by bands such as Metallica and Guns N Roses, this entity went on to record one album but founder David Davidson wasn’t happy with the sound, direction or production despite the huge cult following it had garnered in the underground scene at the time.
Enter Revocation.
2006 came and the band decided to wipe the slate clean, change direction and start fresh and 2008’s ‘Empire Of the Obscene’ brought a totally new sound. 8 years on, Revocation are now on their sixth studio album and held in high esteem in the Death Metal realm. With a title like “Great Is Our Sin”, could this be the band atoning for previous musical mistakes?
If it is, then the opening of “Arbiters Of The Apocalypse” pretty much forgives them right away. With the fusion of technical death metal and thrash metal creating some tremendous sounds, Revocation hit the ground running. Thundering thrash chug style riffs, intricate death metal styled mind melting runs and vocals which dance between thrashy and death metal, it covers all bases and perfectly sums up just how this band sounds. For a better likeness, think a more thrash metal sounding Psycroptic or dare I even suggest it… Death (!)
From here on out, it goes like you would expect. The intricate riffs and thundering approach from the rhythm section adds weight to the intense guitar work. Gratuitous double kick, rapid fills and blasts from the drums create a surging feel which the rumbling low end heavy bassline augments with great effect and it provides the perfect backdrop to the guitar work which slips between the two main sounds of the band with ease. Intricate and intense in the death metal friendly sections, the thrash sections bring more of a musical and groove laden hook. Tracks like “Theatre Of Horror” and “Crumbling Imperium” demonstrate this with minimal fuss.
“Communion” has some real intense and complex melodic lines which descend into a flurry of rapid paced riffs, showing just how intense Revocation can be musically, creating a sense of urgency and franticness whilst being precise and perfectly controlled whilst “Profanum Vulgus” slows the pace a little with a more angular approach, almost bordering on Cynic like territory with some of the musical progressions used. Atmosphere also plays a big part too. Despite the majority of the album being ferocious and intense, it does have some moments of clarity. One such moment is the intro of “Cleaving Giants Of Ice”. Bright sounding clean progressions give an ominous yet calm feel before it explodes into the Tech-Thrash-Death approach. Fluid with its intricate progressions but sounding intense, it has an oddly melodic quality to it, especially in the clean singing sections where it dials back the fury for some big chord work.
The real gem of this album though, for me anyway is the final track on the edition I have for this review – A blistering cover of Slayer’s “Altar Of Sacrifice”. Playing it with the same intensity Slayer had whilst recording this particular song, but adding much more control to it musically, refining it into a tremendously intense and colossal thrash beast, Revocation add themselves to the list of bands who play Slayer better than Slayer (Vader, Decapitated etc).
Overall, ‘Great Is Our Sin” is an essential album for this year. Technically sound with some fantastic riffs and plenty of intensity, Revocation have delivered a real gem of an album here. Taking the precision and complexity of Death Metal and mixing it with the attitude and power of Thrash, “Great Is Our Sin” is an album which will please many metal fans. Headbang, scream, mosh… Do whatever you want… Just get this album!
(9/10 Fraggle)
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