Every few years, a young metal band comes along and, without cutting ties to the genre's storied past, totally rips up the landscape and rebuilds the music in its own image. The lineage runs through Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Pantera, Mastodon, Lamb of God, arguably Trivium...and now, Revocation are one of those bands, an American group coming out swinging with an album that demands respect, as well as furious headbanging. Existence Is Futile isn't the group's debut; they self-released the almost as awesome Empire of the Obscene in 2008. But as most headbangers' first taste of this Boston act, it's destined to be an underground legend and, if Revocation choose the right package tours, could vault them into the big leagues in a hurry. They've got a classicism to their galloping, thrashy riffs and fleet, fluid guitar solos that recalls Lamb of God, but there are hookier melodies here, plus some surprisingly heavy, hardcore-derived gang shouts on some songs, and a bass break and dissonant riff toward the end of "Leviathan Awaits" that demonstrates an awareness of technical and progressive death metal, too. Their vocals are hoarse and guttural, while still recognizable as a human voice, something that will help keep them out of the death metal ghetto. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Revocation, though, is that they're a trio. The complex guitar-bass interplay would seem to imply, even require, two guitarists, but there's just one guy up there, and he's singing, too. From the opening instrumental fanfare "Enter the Hall" to the seven-minute album closer, "The Tragedy of Modern Ages," this is one of the best pure metal albums of 2009.
Good news: Your September 29 dilemna arrived a week early. Whether to first bang your sick little head to ALICE IN CHAINS' killer return or REVOCATION's brutal Relapse debut, entitled Existence is Futile and sure to be one of the year's sleeper hits. To stream, or not to stream…OK, stop reading already and take a [...]
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So I’m back after a brief hiatus and I return with some short reviews of albums from this year and some other odds and ends I’ve come across.Revocation – Existence Is Futile (2009)I heard about this band via another metal blog reporting about ANOTHER metal blog calling these guys “the next big thing” essentially. Saw [...]
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Lots of great albums have come out this year, but I’ve also been liking a lot of the album...
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By Ben ApatoffREVOCATION's first album for Relapse arrives with more pre-release buzz than many more established bands' new music. An Existence is Futile widget has been making the blogging rounds for weeks, and a Decibel review promising "absolutely godlike" content graces banner ads and store copies of the record. Get on the bandwagon, because [...]
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We are happy to be giving away a copy of the new Revocation cd Existence Is Futile and a poster to 2 winners. The album hits store on September 29th, for now have your face melted by three new tracks on their myspace page.Contest Form and the brutally awesome cover art of Existence Is [...]
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Last week, chronically tardy but by no means retarded MS intern Matt Heafowitz even predicted that Revocation's Existence is Futile "is going to go down as one of the marque albums for the younger generation of metalheads." And since he is part of the younger generation metalheads (or is at least right there on the [...]
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Despite Axl’s & Vince’s (& the monkeys’) insistence that there were just way too many amazing albums released this year to possibly narrow a best-of list down to ten, I was (initially) only personally blown away by a scant few. Sure, there were plenty of solid offerings, but flailing within the maelstrom of more year/decade-end [...]
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Congrats to “wiffle bat” and “soup”, the two proud owners of the brand new Revocation CD Existence is Futile. Their winning captions for the photo at right submitted in last week’s funny photo caption contest:wiffle bat: “pardon me while i pass the brains of my bass player.”soup: “…one more push for the new Cradle of [...]
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Last week we offered up a killer Metal Blade combo pack featuring the new releases from Goatwhore, Behemoth and Valkyrja. The winning caption to the photo at right is….Manfred Nuggets:“Dude, after this wedding, I wanna show the bride my Whitesnake.”“Dude! That’ll totally Slay ‘er!”Onto bigger and better things: this week we’re giving away 2 copies [...]
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We’ve ranted and raved about Boston progressive death metallers Revocation enough that you should know all about their upcoming Relapse debut Existence is Futile (September 29th) by now. In case you still aren’t hip, we’ve made it super-easy for you; just click that thar little “Play” button below and listen to their brand new, previously [...]
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 "Existence Is Futile")
