Thrashing tech-death immortalized. 

Revocation has been on a blistering path for the last…well, their entire career. Just one year ago, they topped my list for best album of the year with the self titled Revocation and despite the quick turn around, have pummeled out another instant classic with the album Deathless. Although this album didn’t instantly hook me like the last one did, Deathless is another dense and layered slab of thrashy tech death perfect for the musician’s critic and the mosher in every metalhead. It’s catchy, vicious, and undeniably well written throughout.

Perhaps the best part about any Revocation album, including Deathless, is just how well the band blends progressive structures, technical performances, and overall catchy song writing. While the band occasionally toys with some new elements from record to record, in particular moving away from the pure tech death aspects of their earlier material into a diversified experience on the last few, they retain that ability to write instantly memorable tracks without sacrificing the impressive standards of their musical prowess or occasional progressive tendencies. For the most part this album follows a very similar style of super thrashy tech death like Revocation did, although the band pulls towards a bit more progressive structuring more often and goes for an even denser impact. Not that the band is afraid to even toss in some melodic choruses on the title track or on “Labyrinth of Eyes,” but the latter half of the record plays out more like their early material at times.

Just being more of the same certainly doesn’t stop the band from igniting some seriously impressive music again. “Madness Opus” has a massively melodic interlude of intertwining guitar solos, a borderline deathcore riff and drum piece that underlies the guttural bark of the chorus, and a winding song structure that never really allows the listener to predict what direction they are going to leap off towards. This is a style that all Revocation fans have heard previous, but the band continues to excel at and Deathless is just another record that utilizes it to some ridiculously high standards. Whether it’s the obvious single in “Deathless” or the melodic death metal-tinged “Witch Trials” this is Revocation continuing to deliver…song after song after song after song.

The jist of Deathless remains this: it’s simply a continuation of the sound that they have established since the beginning and it continues to convey the same high quality product that we’ve heard time and time again. Sure there might be some melodic choruses here and there, but at its core it’s the same. It’s not jumping styles. It’s not experimentation. It’s pure Revocation in all of their glory. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.