ALBUM REVIEW: Reveal! – Doppelherz

Swedish Blackened Death Metallers REVEAL! are back with their 4th album of lunacy. Set for release via Sepulchral Voice Records on December 10th.

Melancholy guitars reverberate with a funeral radiance, opening the record in a brooding fashion. Gothic riffing soon emanates ethereal energies before psychedelic eruptions of violent Extreme Metal take us into an abyssal mind warp. Thundering bass crackling through soaring guitars which collapse and rebuild upon unrelenting drum work while demonic vocals call upon unseen entities with raspy howls, this is not a standard example of Black Metal as anyone familiar with this band will know, always expect the unexpected. Bludgeoning us with dissonant assault before jumping into post-rock moments that dance in their resplendent movements, progressing without defiling what the music sets out to achieve, rather giving us a luminous and potent attack on the psyche that is as expansive as it is intense. Guitar solos take a more jazz-fusion approach to metallic lead work with biting aggression appearing there as much as in the contorting spasms of the rhythm section. The ambience of this record is very open and sparse which creates this huge and empty spaciousness which is filled in with a huge range of textured, mindful and trippy elements with juxtapose each other with illogical, angular oddness throughout.

Taking a genre as rife with unusual music as Black Metal with its abundance of character and limitless expressions yet an ultimate regard for the past, Reveal! do not fall into rank easily. This band has expressed no desire to be anything but chaotic, lucid and otherworldly music that decimates any barriers between reality and the further reaches of fantastic imagination. Incantations of eccentric moments fluidly run into despondent passages only to warp into a creative frenzy of lunatic proportions. Layering more obvious Black Metal elements such as blast beats with more rocking patterns alongside a crisp bass performance while the guitars jump through biting scornfulness into a warm embrace with no warning. The instrumentation of this album is suitably confusing and yet feels incredibly cognitive, if in the most psychologically unusual manner. Lyrically, this thing is as odd as the music would perhaps give hint to. I think a state of delirium caused by any given substance, lack of sleep, dehydration, psychiatric condition or perhaps all of the above is entirely plausibly the cause of such a kaleidoscopic example of Heavy Metal.

Closing the last paragraph with the word Heavy Metal, this brings me on to my next point. Aside from Black Metal, Psychedelic Rock, Gothic Post-Rock and various other influences, we see moments more in the vein of traditional Heavy Metal which give so much fury to the record while not detracting remotely from the intensity of the more extreme elements. Floating through a void of trepidation and triumph, Reveal! offer us a most wondrous and direct stare into the mind’s eye that cannot be forgotten, for better or worse. This is not an easy listen, nor a necessarily pleasant one, yet its ability to make one bang their head or fall into a state of frenzy is equalled by its potential for meditation or an anxiety attack which is certainly intriguing, even addictive. Reveal! and their ultimately one-of-a-kind music is comparable to an old friend who can greet you with open arms of a sudden aloof disregard, you never really can expect what is coming, even after repeated listens to the same opus, which is truly commendable in this day and age with music being so accessible. The function of this album is not clear, maybe the band themselves do not know it but I can guarantee nobody shall forget this endeavour of truly wondrous soundscapes. This is a Heavy Metal album like nothing else, perhaps it ought not to be approached as the inquisitive mind tends to be delicate, but for me it is too late.

This is a band like no other, giving us a record like no other. Contradicting themselves rather than following a linear musical pattern while providing something intense and rewarding. This is perhaps more of an analysis than a review because that is all I can really do here. Is this good? Who knows? It is an experience both unique and largely enjoyable, if not in a conventional sense with some astoundingly creative songwriting, a superb use of eccentric musicianship and a production that has more faculties that one would deem possible in a 45 minute album. A cinematic purging of the senses.