Album Review :
Death Requisite - Revisitation

Metal bands are a dime-a-dozen. Stages across the world are filled with death metal bands, symphonic metal bands, and black metal bands. For every competent group, there are a dozen lackluster ones. Death Requisite not only defies this trend with their album Revisitation, but skilfully incorporates each of these subgenres into their melting pot of sonic devastation.

With four EPs and a full length album under their belts, Death Requisite are certainly experienced musicians. The band has notably changed stylistically over time, evolving from a more straight-forward melodic death metal to full-blown symphonic death metal. Unfortunately, as is the case with many bands who release records independently in the underground scene, Death Requisite has been flying under the radar for some time now. Revisitation is as epic as the album art suggests; it is an outstanding mix of progressive and symphonic death metal filled with passionate growling, deliberate drumming, shredding guitar riffs, and soaring keyboards. While the production quality is a bit thin in spots, particularly in the orchestration, it doesn’t detract from what is on the whole an improvement for the band in almost every area.

“Revisitation” exhibits death metal and thrash metal, but also melodic metal. There are several weird time signatures played by drummer William Lee on this song. The song ends with almost a minute of keyboards and symphonic instruments.

“Vivens Sanctuarium” incorporates more symphonic instruments and melody. The song has many weird instruments, backing operatic vocals, and of course, the normal metal instruments, which are played with skill. The bridge is very worshipful. If you listen hard enough, you hear vocalist Vincent St. James saying “I love you, I love you my lord!” The guttural vocals at the end make me want to put them in the same genre as Abated Mass of Flesh, but Death Requisite are a little more refined.

“Veneration” has more thrash metal and death metal than symphony, but near the end there is plenty of all. The track was put on Rottweiler’s The Pack Vol.1, so if you want to hear that, go listen to it there if you haven’t already downloaded the album.

“Nova Creatione” is probably one of my favorites on this album. The melody and pure speed of this track is incredible. The vocals are probably my favorite part about the track. “Father!” Both Guitarists, Joseph Moria and Dave Blackmore do fantastic jobs on this song. “He died on the cross, he lived his life for us…”

“Crimson Savior,” or as everyone now knows it, “Redemptio Per Deicide,” is a great track for a single. The track is fast-paced and delivers a swift punch in the face with its brutality.

The song “Ineluctable Castigation” begins with atmospheric guitars similar to Hope for Dying’s “Acceptance.” It then breaks into vitriolic death metal with background operatic vocals, furious drumming by Sir William Lee, and keyboards reminiscent of Dimmu Borgir. The soaring guitars and growled spasms make it one of the more memorable pieces on Revisitation.

Death Requisite slams on the breaks with the ending of the album. “Recapitulation” is a full-blown symphonic track that lasts over 17 minutes. As a stand-alone song, it certainly awes the listener. I had to double check to make sure that I didn’t accidentally hit shuffle and that it wasn’t Mozart or Bach the first time that I heard it. There’s a real thematic brilliance to it, as “Recapitulation” wouldn’t be out of place with soundtrack greats such as John Williams’ Star Wars or Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings compositions. However, the song seems to jar a bit with the rest of the album. As I pored over my library and revisited tracks where bands successfully used intense, symphonic elements, there seemed to be two possible solutions. Some bands incorporated the symphonic elements into groups of songs spanning a chunk of the album, as in Believer’s “Movement” triumvirate or Ne Obliviscaris’ “Painters of the Tempest” trilogy. Others, such as Becoming the Archetype and their seminal track “Elegy,” focused on building a symphonic theme and weaving it into the metal portion of their music. It also seems similar to the Solamors project as well. In both of these scenarios, the bands each incorporated metal elements into their songs. “Recapitulation” would have been easier to swallow in this manner. It would be very interesting to see Death Requisite release an entirely symphonic or orchestral album one day…

Death Requisite brought their A-game this time around. With a new lineup, they brought this album to light. They have been laying this out for a long time and now that it’s finally here… well, let’s hope that there will be some sick reviews. I hope this album goes farther than it already has! It totally brings the death metal to the long dead scene. Buy the album, and if you don’t, you are missing out.

For those who like: Monotheist, Miseration, Dimmu Borgir, Hope for the Dying, Ovid’s Withering

About the Writers

Matthew Michel

Matthew is a high school English teacher who spends his time reading, writing, and listening to metal. He’s founder of the web forum Christian Headbangers, pilots his own metal blog called Matthew’s Metal, and writes for the online webzine Metal Utopia. In his spare time (which there isn’t much of), he also enjoys fishing, playing video games, and collecting Magic cards and CDs.