Revocation - The Outer Ones

My God I have enjoyed coming back from break to fantastic album after fantastic album, and David Davidson & company are keeping this hot streak going (and I think it will keep going into the next couple of posts).
Having burst onto the metal scene with a lively blend of thrash metal and technical death metal, Revocation have been one of the most thrilling and consistent (and overlooked) bands of the past decade, giving death metal a much-needed jolt of thrash energy while maintaining the high technicality that also enhances the genre so well when applied as deftly as Revocation does. Making their mark on 2018 with their seventh full-length (under their current identity), Revocation have sort of distilled the thrash elements of their now primarily technical death metal sound, but even without awareness of Revocation’s past, their thrash influence can be palpated on this album. The classic thrash that characterized their past is now only present in momentary, but keystone moments. It’s not a crossover focus of their sound on this project, but it is definitely still there and when it shows up, it does makes the most of its presence by complimenting rather than distracting from the dynamic that the fierce cosmic death metal focal piece is constructing. And this shifting of balance between the two genres and focusing on the less party-ish side of thrash is definitely a fitting choice for the sci-fi-focused material of this album.
The dazzling weaving of crushing riffs and wormhole traversing solos through gloriously navigated light speed voyages through the sinister unknown of world eaters of the cosmos on The Outer Ones is a treat for the ears right from the get-go. The breakdown groove at the end of the openning track, “Of Unworldly Origin”, is infectious as fuck and the solo it leads into is a dazzling wonder as well. “That Which Consumes All Things” brings it’s own thoroughly tasty low-register riffs and stunning solos as well amid eerie guitar dissonance. The dynamic “Blood Atonement” that follows plays around with a variety of tremolo-picked and pull-off-filled solos and clean guitar passages that pull the mind back and forth across galaxies.
“Fathomless Catacombs” finds the band working in more classically thrash-styled riffing in a quite Vektor-esque manner on possibly the most thrash-heavy song on the album, while the title track sets the album back on its techdeath course with a standard display of Davidson’s guitar mastery, and sweet, down-tuned grooves in sync with galloping double bass drumming. The following song, “Vanitas”, keeps the techdeath grooves coming along with a few spicy moments like the smacking bass line near the middle. The song also makes a particularly monstrous use of gang vocals on the choruses, elevating one of thrash’s classic typicalities.
The instrumental track “Ex Nihilo” combines Davidson’s thrash-styled soloing tendencies with the furious speed of modern techdeath, which the following song, “Luciferous”, continues, though in perhaps more typical techdeath fashion than what Revocation have shown themselves capable of transcending; the song’s bridge, though, (complete with a tasty little bass solo) is a great display of the band’s atmosphere-creating ability. The album’s final song, “A Starless Darkness”, is opened and closed by a big down-tuned riff that mesmerizes more than energizes in a fittingly conclusive way and based on a slower, more colossal rhythm that still of course finds itself kicked into top gear by nature of the band’s intergalactic musical trajectory, and it’s a properly grand moment with which to end the record.
Full of stunning guitar work and kept engaging by consisently powerful rhythms and infectious grooves, there is not really a weak spot on The Outer Ones, and by decreasing the proportion of thrash elements within their mesh of sounds to bring them more closely in line with other acts in the realm of techdeath, Revocation only flex their prowess more majestically as they take their massive sound and potent skills into other dimensions unheard of by most of modern technical death metal. Revocation have struck alchemized gold again and continue to prove their world-class status in their field by maintaining their high standards amid fitting stylistic changes that other groups might be petrified when faced with making. The Outer Ones is a tremendous addition to 2018’s death metal output, and is possibly Revocation’s best work to date. I fucking love this album. What a great thing to come back from hiatus to.

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