Devastate Under Hallucination

My head hurts. I generally like to start reviews by giving some idea of what a band is about, or by making a seemingly intelligent comment or something like that. I just can’t do it this time, because my head hurts so fucking badly. I had all of what I was planning to say, with regards to this album, all nice and organized, but I can’t even remember it anymore.

Infernal Revulsion is a Japanese slam death metal band. Their music is in the vein of other great bands like Devourment, Soils of Fate and Despondency. For those of you that don’t know, slam death is pretty much brutal death metal that is jam packed with breakdowns (that are NOT of the –core variety). For the most part, Infernal Revulsion manages to pull this style off in an enjoyable – if unoriginal – way.

The guitars are great. Heavy as hell slams pound you into submission without mercy and tempos are quite varied. To my incredible surprise this album isn’t completely devoid of solos, and when they appear they’re actually fairly melodic and well played. The bass is somewhat audible and has a few breaks, all of which are good. The vocals are fairly standard growls, and the lyrics are traditional gore lyrics.

Now, if the band had stopped there, everything could have been okay, but no, the band needed to add in the final member: the drummer. Like George Kollias or Pete "Commando" Sandoval, Masa primarily uses high speed double bass drum barrages and keeps the time with his snare or hi hat. The double bass drum tone here is awful. It’s beyond awful. It is the most triggered thing I’ve ever heard. I can make a more drum like sound if I go, “bumbumbumbumbumbumbumbum” as fast as I can. It’s really that bad. Every hit sounds like a fucking click. Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick. It gives you a fucking headache within the first thirty seconds of the first song, and it doesn’t let up. This is a hundred times worse than Vital Remain’s abuse of gravity blasting. At least there undeniable heaviness was gained from the drums, not to mention incredible skill was needed to play them. These aren’t even all that fast. They’re just awful. It certainly doesn’t help that they’re mixed about as loud as the guitars. It’s as if someone set a metronome to a hundred eighty beats per minute and then just forgot about it while the band played. Actually, that’s not fair. While metronomes don’t sound particularly good, they don’t sound actively BAD. These do. The drumming on the rest of the album is decent, on the few occasions that the guy lays off the double bass for a bit the music becomes a dozen times more enjoyable, sadly, those times are rare as hell. If the double bass drum was removed, even if all that was left in its place was a time keeping hi hat, I’d still rank this album (forty or fifty) points higher. Alas, the double bass drum hasn’t been removed.

Normally production isn’t a particularly big deal for me. Even if a tone sucks I can ignore it and focus on the music on the whole. Here, that’s not really possible. This just gives you a headache. It’s damn enjoyable when the drums stop for a bit, but those moments are way too rare to redeem the album. The double bass drum truly ruined this album. I can’t recommend this for anyone. If you want enjoyable slam death, check out Stabwound or some other band, just stay the fuck away from this.

Infernal Revulsion is a slam darling in some circles, and I enjoy them but have never been able to get into the INFERNAL REVULSION ZONE that a lot of my friends seem to occupy. It's cool slam death, but I don't find it nearly as remarkable as others seem to when compared to bands such as Devourment or even countrymate slam artists like Infected Malignity. Infernal Revulsion has a good base for their music but does just enough annoying stuff to make them not quite make it into my black circle of slam. For those who love brutal death metal, though, I can still recommend it with only a few reservations.

One of the major things that just annoys the fuck out of me is the production, specifically the drums, where 95% of the time the only audible portion is the constant, fairly sloppy double bass. It's only when the guitars stop churning away that you can really hear anything else. The whole production is pretty ridiculously low end; there's like twenty seconds total on the album where anything even remotely approaches the treble range, making it immensely surprising when it actually happens. The guitar tone is nice and fits the riffs, and the vocals are well produced (if a tad loud), but the drums really mar the overall sound of the release.

That aside, the music is mostly very good. 'Deep Down Human Being' is by far the best track on the album and has clearly had three times the effort put into its writing, and it shows in how elegantly it flows. The seams of the song structures are more obvious on the other tracks; riffs sort of abruptly shift into one another and songs just end instead of reaching a satisfactory conclusion a lot of the time. And what's with the constant 'Full Metal Jacket' samples? They don't add any atmosphere really and just serve to break up the flow of the album. Ignoring those squabbles, the riffcraft is certainly a cut above most slam, as this is one of the few slam artists with guitarists capable of writing memorable tremolo riffs along with breakdowns. It almost reminds me of Amputated Genitals in that regard, with the speedier parts taking equal importance with the slam riffs.

The songs are generally a pleasing listen; they're heavy, not especially repetitive, and stay exciting and engaging for the listener. Periodically, though, the band makes a bizarre songwriting decision that doesn't make sense to anyone but them. What's with the second half of 'Chain Of Blunder' with its weird, protracted slow section, or 'Seventh Curse' with its strange array of inconclusive tremolo riffs just before the halfway mark? I realize the Japanese are insane and all but I thought they knew that songs should have a more natural flow than that. Surprisingly enough, one of the strange facets of this album is that the actual slam riffs often seem underwhelming compared to the stronger mid-fast chugging sections; it's not a huge deal, but pure slam fans will likely be perplexed at some of the movements on this release.

'Devastate Under Hallucination' is a good album with a lot to recommend for it, but I can't say I'm as entranced by it as many others seem to be. It's certainly an interesting listen that does some creative things within the paradigm of slam death, but it sacrifices a bit of listenability in its attempt at uniqueness. I do recommend this to brutal death metal fans as it likely won't disappoint, but I can't say that Infernal Revulsion are the new reigning kings of slam. They're a strong part of the second tier, though, and worth the time of the style's listeners.

A few months ago I saw a flyer somewhere on the internet and I saw this band, Infernal Revulsion sharing the stage with Waking the Cadaver. The presence of Waking the Cadaver, also known as the scourge of many metal fans worldwide made me think that this band is some random deathcore band from the United States. It’s not like I hate Waking the Cadaver completely, it’s just annoying that they call themselves and their spawns the most brutal breed of metal. This band, Infernal Revulsion turned out to be a brutal death/slam band from Osaka, Japan. Does that make them any better? You have to judge it for yourself.


Enough with the damn introduction, let’s talk about the music. The first track, which is an instrumental, starts off with an ambient intro. The album is basically a bunch of “chugga chugga” riffs, bunch tremolos thrown at times, pig squeals everywhere but what makes this album different from their American counterpart in that they have more talent. There are actual “grind” parts and with good double kicks. The vocals even though are undecipherable (like duh, most death metal vocals are) suits the brutal music. The bass for most of the part is inaudible which kind of sad (and the reason why I don’t listen to Pig Destroyer much) because bass is very important in grindcore and death metal. There are no guitar solos here and that makes this band losing so much more marks.


While I enjoyed a few tracks, the whole “chugga chugga” thing becomes dull towards the end. I can’t really say I enjoy this album but I still I can’t say I hate this. There are some worthless voice samples before certain songs if this helps you judge this album better. Just give this a listen for the sake of killing the time. Quite okay but not the best.

First off, let me say that I was very suprised when I found out that this band is from Japan because they are the only good band from Asia I have ever heard thus far. This CD is extreme modern brutal/slam death metal similar to bands like Disgorge or Devourment and if you like modern brutal/slam death metal like them then you will love Infernal Revulsion.

This band has only one goal that they want to achieve with their music: sheer fucking brutality. The the guitars are loud as fuck and the double bass drums are constantly hammering awayon this CD. The vocals consist of the generic slam death metal guttural growl and this guys voice sounds inhuman. It sounds like a monster from some low budget bloody and gorry horror movie. This CD musically and vocally sounds extremely ugly, disgusting, repulsing, and relentlessly heavy and brutal. Its not new or innovative or anything but who cares? I would love to show this CD to some Arch Enemy or Dark Tranquility fan and and laugh when they shit their pants and show them what real death metal sounds like.