Reverend

Stonehenge in flames is quite a nice concept for artwork, but unfortunately, the properties of stone would render this entirely ineffective. I can only hope and prey that this is the only critical fault that this slab of metal can vomit up.

On the back of a revolving door of line-up changes between Metal Church and Heretic (the latter of which effectively changed its name to Reverend), this band was officially founded in 1989, releasing a demo and this EP in the same year - a serious statement of intent which, if matched with good musicianship, bears all the hallmarks of something blanketed in passion and desire. The current line up does not contain any of the original members, so I cannot comment on any resemblance between the current band and this original entity*.

A cursory listen reassures me that the band will not be giving me the same hard time that I'm giving them. The opener "Power of Persuasion" doesn't put a foot wrong. The late David Wayne's (R.I.P.) vocal approach is heavy metal as it's meant to be. It's on the higher end of the vocal range, akin to Rob Halford, but no one will ever say that in a negative stance. The lyrics are deeply political, in the same way that you'd expect from thrash icons such as Xentrix and "Justice"-era Metallica. I particularly appreciated the guitar riff that separates each verse, as it portrays an ominous sense to something exciting that's about to happen. The solo is fun too, although I would hesitate to call it memorable as I've already forgotten it.

This is the problem I have with the heavy metal genre as a stand alone collective. I absolutely love the art, and adore the music, but there's so few releases that grab me and make me love every track. The general issue is that for many bands, every song is similar and hard to single out by name only. I feel that this release is guilty of that. Each of the four tracks are absolutely fine - "good", if I feel generous. But they're all so similar and I end up just staring blankly at the track list and wondering which one that was.

Regardless of this, this thrash/heavy amalgation doesn't do anything badly. I absolutely love the guitars on here. The atmosphere of the songs grabs me more than the sound of the instruments, which is a shame. If you're looking for a similar sound, I'd be comfortable saying perhaps Judas Priest meets Iced Earth.

Annotations:

* I am deeply against bands keeping the original name when no founding or early members remain. You're not Reverend at this point, so change the moniker for fucks sake.

Reverend are a power/thrash band that I was introduced to a little while back, putting out only two full lengths as well as this EP, among a few other "here and there" little releases. World Won't Miss You was the album that got me into them, and easily one of the greatest albums of this genre. I highly recommend listening to that before trying this one. I actually discovered the Reverend EP because all four tracks were included as bonus tracks on my copy of World Won't Miss You, so if you seek out that version, it's like a package deal. But staying focused on this release itself, it's basically a hard and murky seventeen minutes of thrashy fury fronted by Metal Church's David Wayne, containing a simple structure that was a little before the power metal side of the band really enters.

That all said, this is definitely the darkest release as well as most straightforward and stripped down. The production is very low quality, making for a very echo-like aura where Wayne's vocals reflect off the walls mixed in with drum beats the blister through everything and stand out a little high in the mix. All of this is pretty forgivable, mostly because non of it stops the mastery of his voice, and the guitars are pretty stellar. Everything takes a speed metal root and drops the distortion to a deeper level, giving it a pretty fierce sound. The riff structure is very threatening, and has an evil boost that mixes very well with the harsh production. The album cover could not be more fitting for what comes to mind when listening to this.

What keeps this from being great is the fact that all four tracks are pretty samey, definitely formula driven, and it's just an overall one dimensional release. No tracks stand out, but they do serve their jammable purpose as well as give an idea where things are headed; plus, it's not very long, so it won't really drag on. The production is a little too harsh at times, which takes away from it as well. Thankfully, what's to come is far greater, and that's why I highly recommend listening to World Won't Miss You first, since this isn't a good representative of the power/thrash dexterity that wold soon follow this. Worthwhile for sure, not essential.

In a very interesting twist of fate, ex-Metal Church frontman David Wayne would go on to form this band with former members of the great Heretic, whose vocalist Mike Howe would replace David Wayne in Metal Church...

Right!

So, this is the debut EP featuring four tracks, and it was simply not to be surpassed by anything the band would do on their subsequent full-lengths or the Gathering of Demons EP. Each song is a meticulously constructed slower piece of thrash metal with Wayne's charismatic, haunting high-pitched sneer vocals preaching their doctrines of libel and decay. Essentially, had Metal Church gone to a more thrash direction after The Dark, this is what you might have ended up with. The band are no slouches either, after the excellent Heretic album Breaking Point I had high expectations for their riff writing abilities and they do not disappoint at all.

The songs focus on important social issues and absolutely no bullshit. The lyrics tear off quite nicely as Reverend Wayne points his skeletal fingers at you from the pulpit and begins to fill your head with the fury. "Power of Persuasion" proclaims the ills of inner city struggles, the disintegration of civilization through greed and temptation. "Dimensional Confusion" has a grooving bass below a catchy, simple riff, and Wayne just flies over the top. "Wretched Excess" crunches along, I love the sort of psycho gang shout 'murder' along to his chorus. "Ritual" ends the EP, with Wayne hissing along almost like a Gremlin version of Udo. It also has some amazing melodic riffing.

The production is nice and dense, the guitars are simple but chunky, the bass is nice and popping loud, the drums rock and Wayne sounds great as usual. The first full-length The World Won't Miss You wasn't bad by any means, but I was a little let down after the quality of songs on this EP. At his best, as on this EP, Wayne was a true metal god, and listening to this again, he is certainly missed. It's also a travesty that the band's tribute MySpace page doesn't feature any of these tracks...

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com