Review Summary: Destructive cult black metal from down-under
This is an extreme album, inevitably one that is going to divide reviewers into two distinct camps: those that worship it for the bestial, destructive black metal that it is and those that can't understand it as anything other than a wall of noise. While subscribers to the latter will try and rationalize this as Australia's response to Norsecore or in rare cases as a bad attempt at death metal, a more suitable comparison would be to Blasphemy and the likes of Beherit and Archgoat. It needs to be made clear straight away that this is a completely different strain of black metal to the typical Norwegian stuff.
If you're looking for melody, musical progression or accessibility then you'll be disappointed. Vengeance... uses Blasphemy-esque riffs with a greater emphasis on sounding evil and speeds it up a bit, a sense of chaos coming with that. It could be best explained as the exact mid-point between Blasphemy and Revenge.
The music is abrasive and requires an understanding of this style before one can really appreciate it. Many will write this off as obnoxious noise without realising that that is what Bestial Warlust set out to acheive anyway. If this is your first foray into this style of music, I'd recommend you jump back a few years to hear something less extreme like the bands mentioned in the first paragraph, or even forward to Abominator's Barbarian War Worship which is essentially a more catchy version of this.
Overall, it's a classic album that acheives everything it aimed for. Whether or not its intentions were to your liking is for you to decide, but there's no arguing that this band was more than able at what they did. If you don't like it, stay away from it. Remember the first time you heard death metal and it went straight over your head because it was so extreme? Bestial Warlust is like that. All over again.
