Band: Revocation Album: Summon the Spawn Label: Independent Rating: 7.5/10 Website: http://www.myspace.com/ revocation BUY NOW!

Revocation proves Boston, Massachusetts has more to offer than modern hardcore and Irish punk. This power trio seeks the elegance and brutality found in today's technical death metal and grind scene, while still displaying a hint of hardcore, mostly in the vocals. The group's debut demo "Summon the Spawn" is a mixer of progressive death metal like Cynic and Martyr, technical hardcore/grind like The Red Chord and Swedish metal such as The Haunted and Carnal Forge. Like the Black Dahlia Murder, two musicians lend their voices. One sings in a gruff, hardcore style; while the other retches gutturally. The title track opens the album with tasty thrash licks cut from the same cloth as The Haunted. Algebraic bass lines put a halt to their thrash assault. The guitar soon follows cue, and the musical equation is solved with double bass drum firing. From a listener's standpoint, solving the equation of the band's time signatures is no simple task. Often music that is too technical becomes hard to remember. Revocation tempers its technical abilities with unforgettable patterns. Revocation's music is of a progressive nature with flowing tempos and intricate timing, but always remains violent. The album's raging, spastic quality is what truly makes it intense. I could just see little Billy bringing this in for show-and-tell at his fifth grade special ed. class. Students would be punching themselves in the face, pooping their pants, hurling desks, and running full speed into the wall (without their helmets!) "Summon the Spawn" is an intriguing listen. It is not very often a demo of this quality appears. The band shows an impressive array of skills and smoothly blends various styles of metal. Revocation would be a nice fit with labels that specialize in the technical death and grind sound such as Relapse, Black Market Activities and Galy. Darren Cowan Back to Reviews