I'd like to believe that everyone reading this is already familiar with this record since Malevolent Creation is far from an obscure band, but "Retribution" always seemed a little underrated to me. For my money, this is the best death metal record of all time. No joke. I know that most people totally disagree with me, but I'm not messing around. It came out early enough in the 90's (1992, to be precise) to where it retained the perfect amount of thrash influences combined with the more aggressive direction of death metal, so the riffs are totally badass, the songwriting gets straight to the point and is based totally on sheer force and feel rather than trying too hard to be super fast or brutal, and every fucking track is a keeper. Nine tracks, 34 minutes: Complete brilliance. I don't really follow the band these days, but I saw them live a few years ago on what I believe was their final tour with Brett Hoffmann on vocals, and I went apeshit when they played "Coronation of Our Domain". That song is flat out perfect—no questions asked.
Malevolent Creation "Coronation of Our Domain"
Malevolent Creation "Mindlock"
Of course, leave it to Roadrunner to let an absolute gem like this go out of print within 10 years or so, but it's still easy to find used and the prices are moderate, so you shouldn't have to pay $20 or anything:
Comments
I enjoyed death metal from that time frame way more than i do now a days. If someone wanted to just hear a nice compilation of bands from that time I would recommend At Death’s Door or At Death’s Door 2. Both featured many great bands of that time.
5.5.2005 | By EMS / SA MOB
This stuff is perfect! Thanks again for another discovery!
5.5.2005 | By Anonymous
“straight to the point” pretty much sums it up. i’m a techie when it comes to death metal (plus i don’t really know shit about anything that was released more than ten years ago), but i can appreciate the brutality here. there are shitloads of crappy bands getting hyped these days that can’t nail that kind of sound.
5.7.2005 | By sweetandsound
this is widely agreed upon as Malevolent’s worst album. i concur.
1.21.2006 | By Anonymous
the sound difference betwwen “then” and “now” is deep, long and maybe funny. But if i look at older death metal bands like Death, Entombed, Cannibal Corpse and others this is probably my favorite album from that times…
if you dont like old school death metal and you like nowadays death metal bands then you are complete retard!
12.10.2006 | By Anonymous