Review: Beast Of Revelation “The Ancient Ritual of Death” [Iron Bonehead]

First thing that attracted me to give it a try to Beast of Revelation and their day view album “The Ancient Ritual of Death” was the fact that the mighty John McEntee from the quintessential monstrosity of death metal called Incantation was spewing his vocals for this project. I was curious of what to find and my expectations were high, it could be an underground jewel, an entertained recording or total crap, as simple as that.

This band hails from The Netherlands and I think because of that fact, it is just a side project that features the vocals of Mr. McEntee. In general, we can find a death/doom approach that takes its time to build in the songs and it seems that never reaches a pinnacle of brutality. For I can tell, the music of this band depicts some landscapes of anguish and desperation. Talking about desperation, I think it was the first feeling that appeared during the several listens that I gave to this recording. You got to be very patient and wait for the good stuff to pop up in very few moments. I think that by the fourth song called “The Fallen Ones”, I started to find some taste in this bland approach. The self-titled track also offers some interesting guitar passages but nothing that blew my mind. You can find a couple of interesting growls and screams here and there as well as catchy riffs but in general it is kind of dull and takes time to develop ideas that seemed unfinished.

Most of the times when you listen to a death/doom band you come to feel oppression provided by the crushing atmosphere and be engulfed by suffocating landscapes but not the case here, sorry, I have to said it. Instead, you will find boring and average pieces that lack catchy hooks that only offer loop after loop of the same riffs and drum patterns. I consider that McEntee‘s collaboration was kind of a commercial strategy no more than that, the band doesn’t have what death/doom is all about. Death/doom metal is not just about slowing down to the point of tedious; it is about creating an atmosphere of decrepit landscapes and Beast of Revelation fails in this attempt. The album is not total crap but is pretty close to it, McEntee‘s vocals save the day but not quite. It is also interesting to hear him out of his main and side projects but I think that his voice does not fit into the concept quite smoothly, he sounds forced and out of his more aggressive and cavernous register.  There are several times in which this band tries to reference the sound of Hooded Menace; For instance, the song “The Unholy Roman Empires”. However, it lacks the skillfully musicianship to hit the right notes and sound monolithically destructive.

All in all, Beast of Revelation just barely manages to sound entertained, I found it useful as background noise that you can listen while you do other shit like work on your computer. Even though I listened the album several times I don’t have many recollections of specific songs or riffs or memorable passages. Being the first effort from this band I can give them the benefit of doubt and maybe there will be room for improvement in the future. Nonetheless, I have to say that I did not find “The Ancient Ritual of Death” interesting or impressive; there is a long way to achieve the punch they need to impress the listener and create the right kind of aura.

Release date: March 6th, 2020

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