ALBUM REVIEW: Revocation – The Outer Ones

Here I review the new album, brought to us by Metal Blade Records, from the kings of Technical Death/Thrash Metal, REVOCATION. A band I have followed since seeing them support Dying Fetus back in 2012. Let’s hope this album is as solid as the rest of them!

1. Of Unworldly Origin goes right into matters with tremolo picked riffs and intense blast beats. The progressive nature of the riffs has a cool feel to it while not being overly pretentious thus messing with the impact and momentum, these are purely hard hitting and precise strikes. The drum skills shown are immediately recognisable as very impressive, as are the guitar and bass players intensive talents. The song is really catchy and a much more darker mood is evident while retaining plenty of upbeat Thrash Metal attack. The punchy hooks really get you wanting to bang your head with plenty of aggression and passion going into every note played. Epic opening piece with a gorgeous guitar solo that breaks things up beautifully. A great opener!
2. That Which Consumes All Things fires in with bleak chords and thrashing riffs that really tear through the mix nicely and are complemented but some absolutely epic drum fills. The hammering and aggressive attack of the song is packed with pure strength and some nice atmospheric Black Metal touches too. The bass lines are really tight and punchy, underlying the guitar work excellently. There is a fantastic growth that really comes to life throughout the song with everything pulling nicely into groovy and upbeat Death Metal really nicely with some killer work from the whole band. The unique vibe mixes aggression and anguish very well creating a really dystopian feel. Brilliant work on this track!
3. Blood Atonement features some nicely effected guitars and a more cheerful vibe, the really intense melodies are instantly captivating and the huge atmosphere of the piece falls into place really quickly. The marching and monolithic track really hits all the right spots, it is intense, heavy, melodic and really stunning to listen to. The hammering attack of the track is carefully placed after the gorgeous melodies which really accentuate how hard it hits before going into some excellent progressions. This is some stellar music with plenty of appeal to any fan of Metal with some nice clean work breaking up the song they don’t seem to have missed any sonic trick in the book, for the genre at least. There are even some more blackened touches to the track that also sound killer. This could be one of the best Revocation songs I have actually heard! Amazing!
4. Fathomless Catacombs drops straight into some really nice progressive guitar and bass work with blistering drums and a nice groove to it, the song is really lively and in your face but incredibly melodic and smoothly strung together. The vocals are a nice mix of high and low growls that have great and clear pronunciation to them which I think is a really important thing to strive to in Extreme Metal, especially if you are a good lyricist like this! The music has a much colder feel to it than their usually quite fun stuff, I am liking the way the new Revocation is experimenting with much darker sounds, it certainly pays off to try new stuff in many cases, this being a prime example. Really cool track with some huge atmospherics going on and some fantastic lead guitar!
5. The Outer Ones opens with pristine and technical guitar lead work over a dismally gloomy rhythm section, setting an awesome dark and futuristic vibe. The incredibly well written Death Metal infested with Thrash Metal attack is so perfectly put together as usual for the band. The groovy crawl of the song is crushingly heavy and just so tight. Their sense of song writing is impeccable and the mix is so neatly clear. This track has such a forceful punchy feel to it. The really guttural vocals are much more intense than the usual thrashy screams, really adding to the pieces brutality. The drums, guitar and bass really set such a strong foundation to the gruesome vocals. The lead guitars soar beautifully through the track with some really nice flourishes and also classic Heavy Metal touches to it, epic! The riffs towards the end are fantastically heavy and punishing too. Excellent work!
6. Vanitas blasts away with furious riffs and a really nice and tight yet chaotic feeling. The crawling guitars, bass and drums sound really eerie and drag the track into existence in a really awesome, gruesome manner. The song has some nice hellish screams over the slower sections creating a tense atmosphere then going into some nice punchy progression and more thrashy parts with excellent transitioning skills used. There is something more simplistic about this song in the guitars and drums while still keeping their tech vibes, it just subsides more and lets the songs slower atmospheric approach speak for itself while still throwing in some nice and unexpected attack now and again. The bass solo sound epic within the mix and has a sort of play off with the guitar that sounds really excellent. This song is much stranger than the average Revocation piece and I think it is representative of the album as a whole, taking risks on going in new directions that ultimately pay off with some of the bands most unique and varied material to date.
7. Ex Nihilo follows on from the last track really nicely with more super progressive guitar riffs, grinding bass and hectically precise drums. The build up is really melodic and enjoyable, culminating in some really cool and sparse sound instrumentals. The guitar soloing sounds absolutely beautiful and really soars gorgeously through the mix while the rhythm, bass and drum sections are not at all overshadowed, rather contrasting each other nicely in sounds. This instrumental piece works as a fantastic interval in the album letting the whole instrumental section of the band really shine and showcase their abilities. A brilliant piece of music that was a great addition with some thoroughly impressive playing from the whole band. Stunning!
8. Luciferous has a really cool old school marching pace to it and these huge, melancholic verses that really are so warm and rich in tone. The song takes a nicely unexpected darker turn going into tremolo picked riffs and so much concisely brilliant song structuring is used that really makes everything feel so in depth and like it has been very well thought out and put together. There is an epic aggression while keeping tons of melody to this piece, I can only really describe it as beautifully ferocious. The bass work is incredible, really punches through the mix gorgeously. This song really has a full of life, vibrancy to it that I loved. The guitar solo was really mesmerising and intense. There is a really strong vibe of “Reinkaos” era Dissection in the latter half of this track, one of my favourite albums of recent. Great stuff!
9. A Starless Darkness comes together nicely with some strong, groovy and technical riffing that has a nice mellow feel to it, something that suits the closing track of most albums. The headbang worthy riffs are pretty intense, regardless of the tempo being pretty slow, it is monolithic. Brilliant guitar melodies bring the song together nicely, slowly coming into a doomy and crushingly heavy verse. The sheerly miserable feel is really tense and very well done. The guitar solo is a great flourish within the otherwise quite bleak track, giving it a bit more liveliness. The groovy riffs that follow are absolutely killer and once more we go down the darker road, in keeping with the rest of the album. The track does a wonderful job of closing the album and ends the journey on a high, while drawing it out carefully and slowly, this song does not in any way feel like a predictable outro. There is some absolutely fantastic lead guitar work that really is chillingly impressive. Brilliant ending to Revocation’s darkest album yet!

This album is much darker than previous Revocation albums. I loved the direction and result of the direction they took with it, some absolutely insane musicianship and killer song writing, tight production and just fantastic music consistently. Some of the best Revocation material in quite some time, or at least to my ear! -8.5/10