The words published here may be coming a bit late, but make no mistake, there is nothing hollow in them. When I say that the latest effort from Revenge, released in November of 2015, is still ruling my life well into the New Year, I exaggerate not. Verily, I approached Behold.Total.Rejection with a small degree of doubt in my mind as to how Revenge would spruce up their tried and true formula and blow our minds all over again, but not surprisingly, J. Read and company quelled all doubt in a matter of seconds and castrated all remaining unbelievers in the process.
Without compromising on their core values, aesthetics, and overall approach to writing Black Metal, Revenge shifted gears a bit on their latest offering as they integrate more accentuated, gurgled lows into the mix along with more slow, deep, grooving breaks and riffs that pulverize and grind the cesspool of society into mere dust. What’s more, each of these things are apparent not even 30 seconds into the opening track, “Scum Defection (Outsider Neutralized).”
As a result, the listener may find themselves rather stunned that this juggernaut is not only still a well-oiled machine, but perhaps churning out their best material in years. As celebrated as Scum.Collapse.Eradication was, in truth, it pales in comparison to this new offering. With a greater sense of clarity and warm intensity, the production really does allow every aspect of the relentless attack of Revenge to shine like never before, especially the drum work of J. Read. Master of the single blast, Read’s performance here is as inspired, varied, and bludgeoning as anything he’s done beforehand and that’s saying a lot.
Readers, take heed especially of “Wolf Slave Protocol (Choose Your Side)” as a particularly good representation of this new offering, as it features the most crushing, vile break maybe ever around the 23 second mark along with an even mix of grooving death worship and neck snapping shifts that will have you sinking into your seat with the immense weight this record puts on your shoulders. Make no mistake: this is complete and total rejection in audio form. No scene, no trends, no fun. Simple as that.
Armed to the teeth, Revenge assaults the listener in a way no other band can. The combination of completely off the wall, abrupt, fill-laden drumming in combination with fast, grinding riffs and feral, ferocious vocals do something to your listening experience that can’t seem to be replicated. “Mobilization Rites” is another stand out that spans six minutes, and essentially covers all this ground and then some. Just when you’ve been relentlessly battered, a grooving, hard-line riff reigns things back in, and when you become comfortable with that, a single improvisation from J. Read takes the song back in the opposite direction, and before you know it, you’ve been slain in an instant by a gouging pick slide and a ripping solo that would make Quorthon proud.
Additionally, you’ve got a song like “Silent Enemy” that begins completely unlike anything you’ve heard from Revenge, with ominous, almost meandering strums of bass before the full scale assault of blasting begins around 20 seconds in and from there, you’re treated to one of the best, wall to wall attacks of the album as “Silent Enemy” is riddled with breaks that batter and crush the spines of weak-minded parasitic filth without remorse. Many of these breaks are introduced with those pronounced growls and barks I mentioned earlier and are accompanied by a full, almost over the top bass drum sound that gives this song and many others an extra “umph” that cannot be quite explained. It’s honestly another level of heavy that Revenge has tapped into, and it’s simply devastating.
Label: Season of Mist
As a matter of fact, it should be said that this album gets stronger and more powerful in scope as it goes along. While the opening tracks detonate Behold.Total.Rejection in most cataclysmic fashion, the last half of the album features some of the bands best riffing, solos, and yes, drumming to date. “Desolation Insignia” and “Hate Nomad” both particularly succeed in delivering heaping doses of the traditional Revenge sound but of the highest quality imaginable. Meanwhile, a song like “ETHR (Failure Erased)” throws the listener another curveball as it only spans one minute and 27 seconds but does so in a way that is utterly relentless, yet unconventional in nature. While it does have a slow, grooving break and a solo, it features a lot of cymbal use and a never ending, almost repetitive vocal attack that only ceases when the song ends. It’s almost like a more stripped down, raw, primitive form of a Revenge song and in my opinion it’s excellent!
But holy fuck, the closing track “Nihilist Militant (Total Rejection)” is as classic as Revenge gets. Featuring amazing riffs perfectly timed break downs and blaring, high pitched vocals that call to arms only the most spiteful, indignant mercenaries to take part in their refutation of all things orthodox and conformist in nature, Revenge do not want your praise nor they do not want your approval. Serving only the interests of the lone wolf does Revenge tread the beaten path yet again on Behold.Total.Rejection and in doing so, disproves the old adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, for this old dog is as blood thirsty as ever and armed with all the tools necessary to execute its final doctrine in ways unimagined . “Rise or fall, Crush or crawl, Rusted blade for all!!!” buy or die!
Patrick Bertlein
February 4, 2016 at 1:05 pm
This band has a member from Black Witchery, who were kicked off a festival in Texas last year for being Anti-Semites. Just saying, in light of the stuff you wrote about Phil you might want to do a bit of digging about the bands you promote, as in google.
Patrick Bertlein
January 30, 2016 at 10:20 pm
Funny that I was just reading how you were not going to touch anything racist. This has a member of Black Witchery, a band who was recently pulled from a festival because of being anti-semitic.
Look folks, noble cause and all but you will have a hard time avoiding these bands in the extreme metal scene. Its unfortunate, and the fuck if I know what these particular two members views are, but Metal as a rule attracts all that is ugly about society, so its bound to draw hateful, vehement views on society and people in general.
I understand the whole scene is changing dramatically, and I appreciate a lot of these changes, but I also think these changes are coming at not recognizing that when the whole aesthetic is about being an outcast and hating the world, some people are bound to become part of it that you and I would agree are distasteful. Bands like Ofermod and Ragnarok do not care what you or I think, they would very likely hurt us and our families. While bands like these are the extreme, they are still a representation of a greater whole, a whole that is a reflection of hatred and suffering. That is simply the Metal culture, and I honestly can’t say I would rather it be different if that meant everyone’s mom was screaming about Satan and it was as normal to listen to this as say Matchbox 20 or Nickleback. If the price of Metal meaning that it retains a few scumbags, even if I want as little to do as I can with these particular people. I think its worth it.
My honest advice, don’t support bands you are fairly sure are not active in any NS scene as a whole, I guarantee you that you will be missing out on close to everything from Eastern Europe if you were to do otherwise and try to not have one band with any questionable members. That’s just not going to be reality.
With that said, I recently had an encounter with a bullshit Death Metal band who decided to say some homophobic bullshit for no reason other than it’s Olympia, Washington and he’s a piss poor example of a stupid white kid. I hate that nonsense, and I did not attend a different Black Metal bands show who came here last year because I saw a video of them doing Nazi bullshit. That is the line I draw. I also disagree with the Obsidian kicking a band off a show because the singer was in a Nazi band, because that particular band was not doing that bullshit and I had no concern any of the singers bullshit views would become an issue that night. I’ve decided to accept that certain people will be in whatever circle I am part of, and all I can do is know whose hand I will not shake and what bands I will put my money and energy towards. That’s the best any of us can do.
Samuel Ou-Rabah
January 30, 2016 at 12:45 am
Fuck racism