Rage and Revenge

I hope you like your metal to sound classic and full of all the cheese in Colombia, because Revenge are here to give you exactly that with their sophomore album Rage and Revenge, released in 2007. However, it could easily come from the mid- or late-’80s, seeing as the main influences are all the fun speed metal bands like Exciter and Scanner, as well as newer disciples such as Ranger and Enforcer. For this recording, the quartet even managed to get the production of the ‘80s, honing in on a rather thin sound that highlights every instrument though leaves a bit of weakness in the guitars and especially the clicky drums.

That isn’t enough to stop me having a good time with the album though, since the quality is high and the ideas infectious despite a bit of silliness with the lyrics and Esteban Mejía’s unembarrassed falsetto vocals. He wails right at the top of the sensible range, sounding like an imp incensed at giants during ‘Reign of Chaos’, which is a slightly steadier number in the grand scheme of things. Usually, the band aims for high speed during at least half of each song, yet the classic heavy metal riffs and melodies with which they mix the speed turn the title track more epic and can’t help but remind of Iron Maiden’s heyday. That said, I’d dearly love to see which members of Iron Maiden would be able to keep up with the pace when it starts to cook during the same song.

What makes me very well-disposed towards Rage and Revenge whereas the follow-up album didn’t quite tickle my pickle is how the group focus on their strengths (riffs mostly, as well as leads) but have the brains to change up the rhythms often enough to prevent things from becoming repetitive. That means that even ‘Speed Metal Overload’ - something you would expect to be one-dimensional - manages to cut the drum beat down to half time to turn a racing guitar part into a hookier and heavier groove, a trick that the band pull off a few times on other songs. Variation of a different nature emerges on the oddly-named instrumental ‘Days of Anthology’, starting slowly and building up into a compendium of mildly atmospheric leads, while ‘Metal on Wheels’ rounds a short album off with some more classic metal riffing, as if Judas Priest had just crashed their motorbikes into Ranger.

Despite the slightly deadened production, the songwriting on this album shines through enough to make me declare it my favourite Revenge release, which is largely due to the variety and excellent choice of riffs throughout the songs, as well as the quality soloing. It’s quick as well, but deceptively so because of the well-orchestrated changes of pace that should rattle your bones nice and good. Trust me, this is going to make you happy.


-- May Diamhea's feat of 100 reviews in 7 days remain unbeaten --