Revoker – Revenge for the Ruthless

I’m pretty excited by Revoker’s debut album “Revenge for the Ruthless”. How often do you hear a debut album that sounds this damn good? Personally, I cannot think of many. Maybe after maturing for several albums someone might sound this good, but not right out of the gate like this one. This leads me to wonder, how are they going to sound when their third album comes out?

The first song I heard by Revoker was “Thief” and right away it reminded me of Machine Head. This is when my excitement started. After listening to the rest of the album I’ve found that the Machine Head reference does not apply to the whole album, but it does resurface from time to time.

I’ve read a couple places where they were likened to Bullet for My Valentine. I’d like to cut that off right now before it gains anymore of a foothold. Sure, there are some similarities: they are both Welsh bands, they both play a heavy style of music that is more accessible than death and black metal. But I’d like to think the similarities end there.

While listening to Revoker I feel like they are probably influenced by Metallica, Machine Head, maybe some Pantera. When I listen to Bullet for My Valentine I guess their influences to be Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance. Can you tell I don’t like Bullet for My Valentine very much? Hahaha. But seriously, Revoker has clean vocal catchy choruses, but it still sounds metal. Bullet for My Valentine (getting tired of typing that name) their choruses sound so over-produced Emo pretty reverb crap. It’s obviously engineered to sell to the mall rat Hot Topic teens. Revoker sounds like a band that wants to revive a style of metal that doesn’t get as much attention these days as the more extreme genres. I can get behind that.

I can’t believe I haven’t been able to find a U.S. release date for this album yet. It’s been out in the UK for a little while now, but nowhere that I could see is there a release date for over here. I had to order an import copy from Amazon to get my hands on it. I’m not waiting around. Don’t know what Roadrunner is waiting for.