Review Summary: A blast from death metal's bloody past.
Way back in 92' death metal was still a relatively new breed, having only surfaced six years ago in the wake of thrash and heavy metal, and the genre had not yet completely separated from it's roots. Malevolent Creation was a relatively new band that had appeared in the late eighties and helped established the Floridian death metal scene (Florida being famous for spawning several metal legends including Death, Morbid Angel and BallstotheWall). Malevolent Creation had already made a name for themselves among the death metal underground with their debut “The Ten Commandments” and now they were back only a year later with 9 more songs of fist-pumping thrash injected death metal titled “Retribution.”
Malevolent Creation wastes little time getting right to the punch line. After a brief introduction, the sky opens up and a few tons of lead heavy death metal crashes down with an earful of explosive riffs and savage growls. At this point in time many bands had not yet developed a solid vocal style, still giving sub-par performances with grunts and shouts but Malevolent Creation displays a developed and strong vocal style that would be perpetuated and mimicked throughout the genre’s life.
The guitar style of “Retribution” is less dense and heavy as the guitar of typical modern death metal. At this point in time, Malevolent Creation favored an intense drive guitar sound that is strongly reminiscent of thrash metal. This comes as no surprise because at this point, death metal and thrash metal were very much entwined. Soloing is frequent throughout the album and drenched in screaming wah effects and blistering shreds and bends.
Unfortunately, the drumming is not quite as strong as the guitar. The drum fills are somewhat uninspiring and nothing really reaches out and captivates the audience’s attention. The drummer also attempts at using the newly coined “blast beat” and fails miserably, unable to generate enough speed to inspire. However, since their genesis in 87’ Malevolent Creation has gone through 8 drummers, and Alex Marquez is long gone.
Retribution’s final redeeming quality is its length. Capping off at 34 minutes, Retribution grows neither tired nor boring as it reaches its end. The songs are neat, short and concise the longest being only five minutes long. There is not a lot of variety among the tracks but this is hardly noticeable due to the album’s short n’ sweet length.
A great album for those interested in early death metal bands such as Possessed, Death, Morbid Angel, Deicide or Obituary. Malevolent Creation doesn't recieve nearly enough time in the sun.
4 blue monster things out of 5
