ABSOLUTION – The Revelation Diaries

This is Absolution’s debut album that comes after the logical continuation to the EP, The Remission of Sin. The EP was reviewed by Metal Express Radio and made quite an impression with their “in-your face Thrash” attack and the almost vintage sound. Actually, that review ended with the question whether this old school sound could ‘convince’ a record label to offer them a contract. Time passed by and as the promo sheet reads this album was self financed in the context of the ‘core’ fuss that dominates the US market.

Nevertheless, underground is where Metal breathes so no worries about this California based band that invites everyone to a nice trip down through a memory lane full of Thrash Metal tunes.
After the short intro where the president of the US is (probably) assassinated, “Armageddon” enters and gets the listener by the throat. The Thrash Metal attack commences with a hearty bass guitar sound from the early Slayer days, headbanging riffs and nice drum breaks. The vocals follow the Sacred Reich attitude with an almost screaming profile that doesn’t say ‘no’ to Tom Araya’s dominating attitude.

“Bleed Victory” takes its place adding some more aggression to the vocals that lightly touch the Death Metal sound in the vein of Schuldiner’s Death. The lead guitar work gets immediately in the spotlight staying safe from the high pitched á la Kerry King attitude by adding some melodic phrasing. In fact all the tracks are guitar based, serving some catchy hooks like in “Eternal Ascension” or in the mid tempo “Seven Deadly Sins” where the vocals sound a little bit out of order especially during the ‘clean’ parts. But hell, this might be due to the sound production that, taking into consideration the modest budget, is decent. After all, the old school Thrash scene in the early days did not become famous from the glossy production or the polished sound. Aggression and speed was the main goal and in this, Absolution proved to be quite successful.

“The Servant of Liars” is a straightforward Thrash attack with a hearty headbanging rhythm and an excellent repetitive Slayer-esque riff that welcomes the fast drum break and the high pitch screams.

The album has a lot to sink your teeth into and to bang your head against. “Mask of Liberty” is audio proof that Absolution knows their way around the fretboard and that the German Thrash scene can be considered in their influences list. Think of early Destruction and (why not) Sodom in their first and more evil days.

It is safe to say that Absolution worked really hard in the studio and for this they are rewarded by a very good debut album. It is good to know that there is this kind of Thrash activity in the underground scene especially in a country that is flooded from all the mainstream and definitely non-old school stuff. Pay a visit to the band’s MySpace and order this one for only $6.99 and remember to always support the underground!