Resuscitation of the Revanchists

With such a band known for controversial lyrics, political views, and a fairly unique bluesy melodeath sound, Arghoslent managed to stay relevant in the recent underground metal scene, despite not putting out any new material in the 2010s. This is likely assisted by internet forums and a slew of clone bands such Grenadier and House of Atreus directly inspired by Arghoslent's unique sound. Maybe these clone bands pumping out albums was the driving force behind writing new material and putting out a new album, which had been severely delayed.

Fast forward to this decade, we finally get the immensely-long-awaited fourth album 'Resuscitation of the Revanchists', and despite the long wait and long delays, it's still undercooked. In fact, it's not even seasoned. It's salmonella in musical form. Even the biggest meatriders of the band would be disappointed in this album for its cheap recording, sloppy playing, and predictable, bland songwriting. Love or hate this band, this is their worst big-deal release of the 21st century.

To start, this album is missing a LOT potential. A lot of the riffs, passages, and song structures are extremely predictable, while being played worse than they should. Like the musical equivalent of a modern Marvel movie. Each song feels like it stays about 30-90 seconds over its welcome. You get the feeling that you've heard it all by the 4-minute mark, and want the next song to start already. The opening track "Recalcitrant Kommando" feels at least 10bpm slower than it should. It's trying so hard to be bombastic, yet failing to deliver. This same slower-than-it-should-be feeling is also on the track "The Curse of San Domingo", both of which having similar tempos and runtimes feel like they're the retarded twins of each other. The guitar leads/solos on nearly all the tracks sound like a generic YouTube guitarist who demos overdrive pedals playing blues licks, but over top melodeath songs. It often doesn't match the blasting, trem-picked foundation underneath. It's also played very softly and without technical skill or rhythmic passion. With obviously flubbed notes, loose rhythm guitar playing, and inconsistent palm muting. It's annoying-sounding and feels like a filler idea. For a more positive side of this review, the last two songs "Hemic Shabba" and the closing instrumental title track are easily the best of the bunch. "Hemic Shabba" has genuinely refreshing riffage. It's darker, atonal, and much less of the major/minor scale wankery the rest of the album jerks itself off over. The title closing track is the only properly-paced song, has the best and catchiest riffs, with also the least-worst of the lead guitar work. The lack of vocals is easily the best aspect of this song, allowing the instruments more of chance to stand out. Speaking of which, the vocals are hot garbage. They sound whispered, or neutered in some way. There's zero power behind them, and they're VERY quiet in the mix. Probably for the better, since they sound terrible. This is odd since this is the same lineup on "Send Forth the Best ye Breed", where the vocals are the most prominent of any Arghoslent release. There are no lyrics available this time around which I feel is blissful ignorance. Oddly enough, it actually sounds like they're ripping off their clone bands, but found them to be lacking in racism. Somehow the song structures and riff ideas sound like dollar store versions of their own unique sound. As is they're playing catch-up and forgot how to be good at what they started. It's a different kind of pathetic.

Now let's talk about the impotent production. Context is key here, because their albums 'Incorrigible Bigotry", "Hornets of the Pogrom", and the split "Send Forth the Best ye Breed", have decent-sounding production, with each mentioned release sounding better than the last. This album sounds so lazily done, it actually makes their "Arsenal of Glory" demo from 1996 sound better. The guitars are the definition of 'all bark, no bite', meaning that they're pure midrange with zero attack to them. It sounds like someone dialed in a squeaky guitar tone and threw a giant moving blanket on top of the speaker cabinet. Muffled, narrow, yet way too up front. The bass is audible, yet lacking in grunt or foundation. Absolutely no grit or balls to it. The drums are the worst sounding instrument on hand. Like the aforementioned better-sounding releases, they're triggered, or at least the kick and snare are. Not only is this triggering painfully obvious, it makes the horrid-sounding real cymbals stand out. They sound so unbelievably harsh and brittle, as if they're made out of tin. What's weird is despite the drums being triggered, they sound soft. Like the drummer forgot to have his morning coffee and can't lift more than 10lbs at the gym. The production is still "clean" production, as in you can hear everything somewhat clearly (aside from what lyrics the vocalist is saying). The whole album straight-up sounds like a rough mix, and needs a lot more work done. It makes no sense for a band with a better-sounding back catalogue and giant gap between releases to hit the export button on an aborted-sounding mix. Their 2000s albums have chest hair, while this hasn't even had its balls drop.

The playing on this album is my biggest gripe. A massive step down from previous efforts. To quote Skwisgaar, Gelal Necrosodomy is "slowly learning how to un-play the guitar". The same can be said for literally every member. the dozen or so years of a gap must've been the members giving up on music, and then deciding to attempt at reigniting the fire, because it genuinely sounds like they dusted off their instruments and their skills have gotten stale. The rhythm guitars are not tight, lead guitar work is sloppy, the drums are slow and weak, the bass feels like an afterthought, and the vocals sound phoned in. The sense of the band members getting impatient during recording reeks on this album. A lot of "ehh, good enough" takes, "good enough" tone dialing, and a "good enough" mix. It's like they're allergic to playing well and sounding heavy.

This album is a unique piece of burnt trash. If this was some clone band's first release, it'd be a below-average-but-not-terrible effort. But Arghoslent are the originators of this sound with a catalogue to back up. They must be held to a higher standard. Every single aspect of this record missed the mark. The sloppy, slow playing, the cheap, terrible production, the bland, predictable songwriting that drags on for too long, and those fucking terrible vocals. Easily one of the worst comeback albums in extreme metal history.

House of Atreus and Grenadier are the better listening options. They don't fall short like this album does.

I wanted to like this album. The other three full lengths would all easily round up to 9 or 10/10s. But no good thing can last forever.

Kohanic Charmers shows they still have the chops, but perhaps not for this specific niche of their own invention. Almost the entire album is forgettable and boring. Here are the exceptions: Recalcitrant Kommando, Terra Nullius (first half), and Fragrance of the Octaroon (first riff). That's it. The rest of the album is a shameful desecration of Arghoslent's catalog.

I don't believe there is any point in trying to describe exactly how the album is mediocre, because any judgement of that kind on an objective basis would require some criteria which if fulfilled would make them not suck. None really exist; the exact same words and theories which apply to a mediocre album (e.g.: Resuscitation of the Revanchists) could also apply to a GOATed album (e.g.: Incorrible Bigotry). What makes good music is beyond words or formulations, or at least mine. I could say the riffs are boring, the solos are insipid, the vocals are functional, the drums are fine. But the phenomenology of the music is king, and this album's would be the equivalent of Nero.

But while you're still reading, I will try: The riffs are entirely too slow and sappy. At times, it sounds like stereotypical mid 2000s American melodeath. There simply isn't a lot of musical information being introduced, and the melodies/riffs aren't catchy enough to bear repetition. There is one technically competent (though not exceptional) solo on the title track, but the rest of the solos (many songs don't even have one) are slow, technically unimpressive, and just sound noodle-y. The tone and production is fine and typical of Arghoslent, with perhaps a new touch of Swedish DM, especially on the lead parts.

Though some passable high points are reached on the first track and Terra Nullius, I'm severely disappointed. The band's catalog could have been utterly flawless like Necrophagist's if they simply didn't publish this album. Unfortunately, now the ideology- and genre-based negative reviews find company with this true fan's honest assessment. But don't be sad it's over, smile because it happened. At one time, Arghoslent showed the world a new musical niche of empowering, rhythmically interesting, catchy, bluesy heavy metal riffage with brutal, politically incorrect lyrics. Now, it inevitably folds into entropic decay.

Well, I guess it was about time I finally covered an Arghoslent album, given all the Arghoslent-worship albums I've been reviewing. For those out of the loop, Arghoslent has a reputation for being the most infamous melodic death metal band out there, mainly due to their lyrics dealing with racism and white supremacy. Despite the controversy, many have gone on to praise the band for their rather bombastic and bluegrass-like approach to the genre, with albums like "Incorrigible Bigotry" and especially "Hornets of the Pogrom" gaining their fair share of defenders.

And this is where we cut to today. After 15 years of waiting and delays, the band has finally put out a new studio album titled "Resuscitation of the Revanchists", which more or less continues what the band has been doing before. However, as someone who was briefly into the band before quickly moving onto some better alternatives, this album failed spectacularly. Not only is it an obvious step down to their previous works, but there are even some oblivious mistakes that similar melodeath bands won't be caught dead with.

What do I mean by this? Well let's check out the instruments first. Just like their previous albums, the band jumps straight to the point with its death metal instruments in the first track "Recalcitrant Kommando". We hear the harsh guitars play some melodic, yet brutal riffs followed by the bombastic and fast-paced drumming, with the bass just trying to catch up. One major flag, however, is the production, or lack thereof. Unlike the last album having cleaner production, this one sounds more messy and quieter, with the instruments sort of blending in one another, though this is mainly from the band recording the album from their home rather than the in a studio. Even without the lame production, the songwriting itself is pretty weak. While this track and most other do have the typical tropes of an Arghoslent song with the harsh melodeath structure and all, it doesn't really do anything that makes it stand out, and ends up feeling more like bad leftovers from their previous works. With that said, there are a couple of tracks that have some decent riffs, such as in the tracks "Terra Nullius" and "Fragrance of the Octaroon", as the riffs there are pretty melodic and catchy, and if all the other tracks were like that, then I won't mind the instrumentals that much. However, those moments are few and far between, as most of the instruments suffer from lackluster songwriting and poor production.

But then we get to the vocals, and this is where things get pretty bad. Ulfhedinn does the vocals on here, and let's just say his voice does not help this album by any means. He does these deep growls that are similar to those in the previous Arghoslent albums. However, the problem is that the voice itself sounds terrible. They sound more like whispered growls, and instead of bringing fury into the atmosphere, the vocals end up making you feel bored and tired. This is especially the case in the track "The Curse of San Domingo", where the growls are especially drowsy, and I won't be surprised if it turned out Gelal told him to keep it down so he won't wake up his grandma. But nevertheless, the vocals are not only extremely quiet and lame, but they do nothing to further enhance what little there is to enhance.

Now, the lyrics aren't availible at this time, though I'm pretty sure it's the same racist crap they've been doing from before. And besides, even if the lyrics happen to be the best ever written in metal, it still doesn't negate the fact that the instrumentals and production has been downgraded severely, as well as the vocals sounding like a joke. Honestly, Arghoslent couldn't have picked a worse time to put out an album, especially with all the other better alternatives out there like Gernadier, House of Atreus, and Dungeon Serpent to name a few. If you want to listen to some bombastic melodic death metal, do yourself a favor and skip this one altogether, as well as just about all the other Arghoslent releases.