As Hell Retreats - Revival
Rating
RIYL
The Acacia StrainEmmure
Liferuiner
Recon
Release Date
05/25/2010
Label
Strike First RecordsTracklist
1. Intro2. Inferior
3. The Holy Thief
4. Raze
5. Resting with Closed Eyes
6. Messengers
7. Contradiction
8. Revival
9. Poor God
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Do you like unoriginal metalcore? How about bands that throw in an amateurish blast beat in almost every song and chalk that up to having death metal influences? Are you a fan of uninspired, second-rate musicianship? What about multiple breakdowns in each song that are either ripped off from other bands or just flat out boring? If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, As Hell Retreats might be the band for you.
On their debut full length Revival, As Hell Retreats is another below average band trying desperately to combine ideas from the metalcore, death metal, and thrash genres. The most apparent issue with the quintet’s approach is that their technical skills are lacking for the style they’re trying to write. To even begin to be a contender in this genre, at the very least, the guitarists need to be at an advanced shredding level and the drummer needs to be able to regularly achieve blazing speeds. There are moments on Revival that hint at the band being on the brink of the aforementioned skill level, like in “Contradiction,” however, those moments are brief and the band retreats (get it?) back into mediocrity for the duration of the song.
Skill is only one piece to this puzzle though; it’s also important to be able to create well written, creative songs, and again As Hell Retreats is subpar in that area. Every song pretty much sounds the same, there’s a blast beat, a generic and forgettable metal riff, followed by a breakdown, then the formula repeats until the track finishes. There are some decent guitar leads here and there, as heard on “Inferior” and “Messengers,” but they are few and far between and not enough to save the album. Many of the breakdowns aren’t bad either, although they are a little too reminiscent of The Acacia Strain, plus the vocal rhythms and screaming style are very similar as well.
Revival is an extremely forgettable release from a band that simply isn’t ready to successfully pull off a metalcore/deathcore/thrash record. Perhaps some maturation will do these guys some good, but if history is any indication, the odds are not in favor of As Hell Retreats.
--Nicholas Fritz
Comments
Minnesota
What got me most of all on this release was the production. It's horrible. But maybe they were doing that on purpose in an attempt to cover up that they're not all that great...
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Coopersburg, PA
Haha, yeah possibly. I've noticed that many of Strike First's releases are bad quality for whatever reason. It's weird because it's not that hard to make a good sounding album for cheap nowadays.
Dubuque
Raw = Original
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Minnesota
More like Raw = Lazy.
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Infinitely Inwards
Bad (as in unclean, shallow, and empty) production is inexcusable in 2010. Let's get with the fucking program guys....its called pro tools and/or sonar.....and you can do it too. BTW...first paragraph in this is spot on.
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