REVENGINE – Plan Your Escape

Revengine’s new EP, Plan Your Escape, seemed to be some sort of risk taken by a young group. Deep within the EP there are more than enough shares of different sub-genres in Metal and also varieties of Rock, on its rather stony side. Past attempts showed that it’s rather hard to create compositions of mixture taken from Rock and Metal. However, as one of their first attempts, which was made with a suitable (not over the top) production, Revengine made it worth it and formed a relatively pleasing release by screening the modern side of both genres.

History tells us that the Revengine trio started playing in 2007. Before their formation, each one of the members was involved in the music business, yet there is not too much information about that. Ever since they debuted their act, the guys were busy trying to create a sort of Rock/Metal that will take a hold as something exceptional as opposed to others. The music was written all in the spirit of the modern Metal way.

First, before sinking teeth in on the substance of the album, it must be said that right from the first listen, it was hard to comprehend that Revengine is really a Finnish band. Furthermore, it also hit hard how strong the American influence on European bands’ style and music is. Every bit of influence that came through Revengine is American based tunes and bands as the new aged Metallica, Pantera, Fear Factory, Down and from the world of Modern Rock/Alternative with similar bands as Therapy?, Backyard Babies and the bombastic Nu-Metal forge of Sevendust. The foremost aspect behind the essence of Revengine is being diverse, their talents of playing multifarious rhythms with various hints of catchiness. It makes them quite an interesting band that its “no direction” theme would utterly pay off in the end because they can reach many listeners from different types of approaches and views.

Plan Your Escape offers nearly everything that is Metal and Rock, from the toughness and brute attitudes (not the deathly ones of course) to the rockier motifs and softer spots, which were left over to emotions. The result painted a picture of cool to the side of energetic kind of music that drove through changes as it progressed to the stretched boundaries of both musical perceptions.

The leading evidence of the capacity and talents of Revengine is the track “Live In A Moment”, where the created mixture turned this one into an attractive feature to listen to. On and off, this is the real Revengine on display. Behind this track, there are some other goodies, lesser than the former, yet also formidable to take notice of such as: “Treason” – a hardcore staggering feature of anger that is very similar to the Metallica approach of the late 90s (which was everything but Thrash Metal), “Die For You” – something a bit from the Therapy? side of things with the depressing motif of Finnish Metal (maybe the only indicator that this is not of American nature). Other tracks as “Turn To Stone”, “Given It All” and “Fear Me” are, more or less, impressive tracks with the same catchiness of Modern Rock/Metal music, yet they less defined Revengine as the others.

Plan Your Escape is a great plan for the rest of the road, however without the escape part. These guys are skilled and their music has its share of differences, from this end they are worth it.