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The Ravenous > Three on a Meathook > Reviews
The Ravenous - Three on a Meathook

The sequel to their horror laced sound - 90%

Byrgan, May 8th, 2006

Two years after the release of "Assembled in Blasphemy," the wait was worth the listen with the next ill-willed output from the same collection of multi-band personalities. This release is similar to Autopsy's earlier work and Necrophagia's second wave albums, though still managing to add another twist to the direction of those outputs. This short recording shares the same name as 1972's serial killer inspired horror movie "Three on a Meathook." It also breathes death into various grotesque themes of horror accompanied with a bombardment of extreme metal. Let's just say listening to this abomination will either make you ears bleed or your mouth water for more, maybe both.

The music is similar to the debut, though a few aspects are different or slightly rearranged. For instance, the guitar sound went from being filthy and unclean to a little more distinct, deep and weighted with this particular cave-like amount of presence placed on top of them as well. They can range from singly strummed, chord driven and onto tremolo picked parts as well. The pace on this album is divided between on-the-verge-of-faster tempos, medium venturing and then going with these particular foreboding slow sections. Reifert's drumming can be somewhat diverse, managing to take advantage of a decent proportion of that set of his. On "I Drink Your Blood" he brings out a wide variety of tom drum abilities to not break the collective silence that might have been deadly otherwise. It is a different tactic than some other bands with only cymbal hits or quick rolls to jump into an upcoming riff.

Lilker's bass guitar can be heard underneath and distorted just as the last; it tends to give the already deeper oriented guitar tone even more weight to tend to. Reifert and Killjoy's vocals treat you with a dual onslaught of interchangeable feats. Reifert can be heard mutating his vocal chords this way and that, sometimes doing this certain extended yelling technique, though he has tendency to growl and side more with a deeper tone. Killjoy can be heard mostly with his characteristic higher screams, which is a way of vocalizing that doesn't always get a chance to show its ugly head very often in the death metal genre. On some occasions, he pulls out these sort of choking/strangling sounds that can give the overall grimy, you're-gonna-die atmosphere the band is delivering that much more realism.

A stand-out addition to the first album and this twisted output, is the use of a few snippets of horror oriented voices that have tendency to pop up unexpectedly throughout the songs. Something like Carcass did on "Necroticism." Along with this feature and the dual voices, these additions can set themselves apart and bring out a personality for the band that's sometimes hard to find. The group's ability to craft a song into something that has an actual dark and disgusting feeling, while still having room to excite that dome on top of your neck, is what makes this a successive album that can work along with the first. The debut was a little more grimy and oppressive in comparison. The production, for instance, got a little less dirty and thicker, but, on the other hand, has this cavernous effect added. With its short length, it's hard to get completely sucked in and you might have tendency to hit repeat. "Three on a Meathook" is still up there, and has the ability to lead its listeners into another dark and dangerous alleyway. The one you know you shouldn't be going down, but are doing so anyway.