Artist: Revenant Dead
Title: Imperial Rape March
Type: Album
Label: The Orchard

Ever since Black Sabbath invented heavy metal back in the late 1960’s, Birmingham has continued to produce a string of good, solid metal bands, from the likes of Judas Priest through to Anaal Nathrakh. One of the latest bands in this long line is Revenant Dead, whose debut album Imperial Rape March does more than enough to keep their Brummy pedigree intact.

In the three years since they formed, the quartet (comprising of West - vocals, Aydin - guitars, Dahmer - bass, and Theo - drums) have diligently honed their sound on the live circuit to the point of technical precision whilst maintaining an organic feel that mixes genres like Deathrock and Thrash seamlessly throughout the album’s ten tracks.

The tracks on the album progress fluidly without any feeling like a ‘radio-friendly’ space filler put in for the sake of satisfying label bosses. That said some tracks stand out head and shoulders above the others: the Deathrock groove plunging into head-banging thrash of the album’s first single ‘Jailhouse’, the vitriolic and mosh friendly title track ‘Imperial Rape March’, the sombre and melodic ‘Tantamount’ and the pounding and melodic album closer ‘Torment’.

All in all, this is a good foundation to lay by a band with a lot of crossover potential, and one that if they capitalise on, could see them become major players in the European metal scene.

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