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Septicflesh > Revolution DNA > Reviews
Septicflesh - Revolution DNA

Diversified elements make a unique masterpiece - 100%

Writhingchaos, March 23rd, 2016

Ah what do we have here? After their (arguably) best album Ophidian Wheel, Septic Flesh chose the difficult path of adding more ingredients to their already varied soup. Needless to say, the results are are stunning. Now before a few of you shout "SELLOUT" let me assure you, this is NOT a sellout into gothic metal/rock or whatever. Yes both the genres do play an important role in this album, but not to the extent of overshadowing the metal elements at all. Believe me on that. People honestly need to mindlessly using that term at the drop of a hat. Period. These guys are one of the finest metal bands on the planet and this album just reinforces that fact yet again.

Let me break it down for you dumb shits: A sellout is when a band forcefully against their own will makes music that will (or rather they think it will) pander to a large majority of people out there because that is the kind of music that is experiencing a surge in popularity at that particular time. In the case of St Anger and The Unspoken King, you could spot the display of fake poseurdom a mile off as clearly both the bands were trying too hard to be something we were obviously not. Now if you have a pair of functioning ears, you would have definitely noticed that the complete opposite holds true in this case as each of the different genres at display here merge beautifully with one another. These guys sure as fuck know what they're doing, more than you and I ever will.

With that out of the way, if you've been a die-hard fan for a while, then you know that Septic Flesh has always been a band that has done their own thing their way from day one onwards and this album is no exception, seeing them fuse a large variety of genres like rock, gothic metal, melodic death metal, psychedelic music, electronica and alternative rock (yes!) into a simmering tapestry of staggering proportions. I can almost see you jaw drop going "No fucking way", well listening is believing fellas. The haunting female vocals of the past releases are completely gone, but on the other hand, the vocals are all over the rock and metal spectrum featuring chants and whispered vocals for added effect. What is even better is the use of echo-laden clean picking sections welded perfectly into the heavy echoing riffs, making way for a very eerie/haunting effect most of the time that I'm quite honestly yet to hear in the genre. Let me reiterate: I'm yet to hear it being pull off so effortlessly and with such masterful twists in each of the tracks that keep you guessing through and through. Truly amazing and unique in itself. Listen to "Arctic Circle", "Chaostar" "Little Music Box" and "Science" to get a sense of what I mean.

As many people have pointed out, this album was a one-off thing after which they regained their symphonic death metal footing with the pounding Sumerian Daemons, but unlike most other bands out there, their experimentation with other genres has payed off marvellously and I do hope they make another album like this again. Because of its blend of genres, this album can easily appeal to other open-minded metal fans who previously weren't too found of the bands symphonic death metal leanings. Apart from it perhaps being a tad long (I'm nit-picking again) every damn song stands out and has something unique and exciting to offer. I truly urge all open-minded metal fans to give this doozie a shot. I guarantee you won't regret it.

Gothics lost in a dystopian space - 96%

kluseba, March 6th, 2015
Written based on this version: 2005, CD, Holy Records (Limited edition, Reissue)

Septicflesh was one of the most experimental extreme metal bands in the nineties along with Amorphis, Moonspell and Therion. Before the band adapted its slightly repetitive symphonic death metal sound, they had tried out many interesting experiments and this overlooked and underrated record is one of them. Less than two years ago, almost all old albums of the band were rereleased but this album here didn't get such a treatment for reasons which I ignore. I would suggest true fans to try and get their hands on the limited reissue by Holy Records with three bonus tracks which came out ten years ago and which has become a true collector's item. The additional songs fit well to the regular output as well.

"Revolution DNA" is a logical follow-up to "A Fallen Temple" which had featured a few new tracks, some rerecorded material and a couple of purely symphonic and quite theatrical tunes. The new songs on that album had a clear penchant for gothic metal with a few psychedelic influences. The new album follows this path and recalls bands such as Moonspell, Paradise Lost and even Type 0 Negative.

"Science" opens with weird space sound effects and some electronic elements before a longing yet heavy riff somewhere between doom metal and melodic gothic metal kicks in. The verses feature almost spoken-word male growls that sound mellower than on the predecessor but which add a new dimension to the band's sound. The pre-chorus and chorus are dominated by melodic and slightly nasal clean male vocals. The refrain is in fact one of the catchiest on the entire album along with the epic and harmonious "Nephilim Sons" and recalls the great "Brotherhood of the Fallen Knights" from the previous output.

The second track "Chaostar" is more influenced by "The Eldest Cosmonaut" and focuses much more on the dystopian space sounds with a dominant base guitar, weird distorted guitar sounds, the dominant use of electronica and haunting spoken-word growls. The song is confusing at first contact, highly experimental and unpredictably weird but its dark atmosphere and the haunting clean guitar riffs add depth, intellect and soul to the song which would perfectly fit on the soundtrack of an independant science-fiction-horror movie. The elegiac "Last Step to Nowhere" would also be a strong candidate for such a score.

Early fans of the band should not worry though. Along with melodic gothic metal tracks and experimental space metal sound collages, the band still goes back to its early days with a few meaner, heavier and faster tracks fetauring powerful growls as in the short but efficient "Radioactive" or the almost industrial metal orientated stomper "Dictatorship of the Mediocre".

The mixture of these three styles works amazingly on the album. It sounds coherent and structured yet experimental and refreshingly open-minded. The album has a haunting and almost progressive atmosphere that sucks you in right from the start and never lets you go. It's the kind of album where it's tough to pick any highlights or weaker tracks. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I highly suggest you to listen to this album in one single shoot to understand its magic and majesty. The record never gets boring over a running time of one hour or even seventy-three minutes if you have the limited reissue. Even though it's hard to compare this album to the compilation-like predecessor, I would call both albums essential releases of the band which are pretty much on the same level. In my opinion, this record might not be the very best gothic metal record ever released but it surely is a solid candidate for the podium and clearly among the ten most interesting releases of its genre.

Seeded with the shattered limbs of yesterday - 62%

autothrall, July 26th, 2011

By the close of the 90s, all three of the 'major' Greek metal acts had made large alterations in their chosen sounds. Nightfall had gone from their melancholic Gothic/black roots into a sort of accessible, fetish rock crunch, while Rotting Christ was writing the most arguably mainstream material of their career (though it was still quite good). Septic Flesh, too, would incur a larger transformation than any of their prior full-lengths with Revolution DNA, an effort that drops most of the sultry, stunning Goth/death and doom of previous works in favor of something more tangibly radio oriented, a hybrid of modern melodic death, dark rock and a minor transfusion of electronica. While the earlier albums had their roots firmly in the ancient past, Revolution DNA was the Septic Flesh of the 'future'. Only this future did not look so bright...

Let me be clear, though: this is not a complete 180-degree turnabout from what the band had been exploring with tracks like "The Eldest Cosmonaut" off A Fallen Temple. They've dropped out the female vocals in favor of a wider palette of male shades, about of half of which are the familiar Spiros Antoniou grunts and the other half...well, a blend of mid-ranged cleans and then some more nasally, agitated tones reminiscent of Jonathan Davis of Korn (used in "Science", "Radioactive", and several other tracks). You'll still hear a lot of the band's trumpeting, sailing guitar melodies ("DNA", "Revolution"), and once in awhile the lilting, doom sequences that made efforts like Mystic Places of Dawn and Ophidian Wheel so memorable ("Arctic Circle", "Age of New Messiahs"). Parallels to Paradise Lost exist here, and many of the songs have a similar ethos of potent power chords and melancholic melodies redolent of One Second, or the later (and far better) Symbol of Life.

But then there are the tracks of a more 'experimental' nature, but not really experimental. Gone are the operas of Ophidian Wheel and A Fallen Temple, which had been transplanted to their new side project Chaostar (not to be confused with the song "Chaostar" on this very album). The band flirts with campy electronica and robot voices in "Android", which is about 50% exactly what you might expect with that title, and then 50% atmospheric, open chords with black snarls and repeated lyrical motifs. "Telescope" is like a mix of Pink Floyd and The Kovenant. Rinse and repeat that for "Last Stop to Nowhere", but with more of an industrial undercurrent. Then there is "Dictatorship of the Mediocre", a lamentable groove metal track which is perhaps all too aptly titled, and the worst here or possibly on any Septic Flesh record. Not all of these deviants are necessarily bad songs, mind you, but neither are they sufficiently memorable. I certainly expect Septic Flesh to attempt such mutations, I just expected them to be better than this.

The production is bold, brazen and modern, like many of the other Gothic/metal bastardizations of the times (The Kovenant, Theatre of Tragedy, and so forth), with the melodies perhaps a bit too piercing over the rhythm section. I can't say I enjoy most of the vocals...Spiros sounds fine where he belches out his gutturals, but the cleans don't offer much in their crusade to sound all schizoid and disaffected. Most of all, though, I just found myself clinging to whatever songs were closest to the band's poignant past. I once enjoyed this more than I do today, but there is treacherously little staying power. A few fine moments here, like the opening moment of "Science" or the soaring, resonant bliss of "Little Music Box", sure. But as high strung and 'modern' as the band sounds throughout Revolution DNA, the album seems to have become increasingly less interesting across the years, where something like The Kovenant's Animatronic still sounds quirky and catchy (if incredibly cheesy) to date. Ultimately, this is the worst and the least of Septic Flesh's works, but rest assured that they wouldn't dwell on these shores of possibility for long.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

A pleasant surprise - 89%

Edgecrusher, February 12th, 2003

After "A fallen Temple", the band indicated that they were going to focus more on songs like "The Eldest Cosmonaut". With reports that Natalie Rassoulis was not appearing on the album, and Sotiris assuming a more important role, vocal-wise, this had all the makings of a Paradise Lost-esque disaster, or so I thought...

Well, I couldn't have been more wrong ! Yes, "Revolution DNA" is quite different from previous albums, but it really is a step forward, not a step towards selling out. Indeed, Sotiris and his clean vocals assume a more important role, but Spiros' growling vocals are still there. Yes, the songs evolved towards a more modern sound, shying a bit away from the atmospheric doom of the beginnings, but it's all good.

Septic Flesh's writing skills are still unmistakbely present. Songs like "Science" or "Telescope" fully demonstrate the new direction of the band. As I said, the whole thing has a more modern sound, reminiscent of Nevermore's approach of doom metal (on "Dreaming Neon Black").

Yet this is a BIG step forward, and might not be to everyone's liking. To sum it up, this move may be compared to My Dying Bride's release of "34.788%...complete". And as for MDB, I have to admit that "Revolution DNA" holds songs that are too overboard for my liking ("Android", too electro for me). I also have to mention "Dictatorship of the Mediocre" as a low point, because of its dumb lyrics, unfit for Septic Flesh.

All in all, it's still a pretty good album, better in my opinion than "Ophidian Wheel", for it's more cohesive than its predecessor (see my review of "Ophidian Wheel" to see what I'm talking about). Some great songs, great melodies ("Little Music Box" will stick in your head for a while).