Revelation - For the Sake of No One
January 28 2010 at 01:15:30 PM
I’ma rock ‘n’ roll soldier, gonna play it ‘til I’m dead. Yesha, Baltimore’s Revelation – “Doom” band that plays its step-‘n’-fetchit part. Which is to say it sustains permutations of “N.I.B.” for the entirety of
For the Sake of No One’s near 50 minutes. Process? Selfsame. Method, though, subtly – strangely – different. Not nearly as muscular as Iron Man (nor as blatantly “Doom,” for that matter), but indulging in a sort of “technical ecstasy” that serves to place this trio almost outside of the hackneyed idiom it operates in.
Sort of genre “transcendence” is a motherfucker gratin’ on the nerves. And there are times, even when, ahem, buried alive behind this wall of sleep, where Revelation is overtly not a Doom Metal band, but rather some Necro-techno Buck Dharma/Randy Holden hybrid. Maybe it’s self-evident. Didn’t resonate with me until about the sixth or seventh listen; remarkable considering music’s current mortality rate. Restraint is key here. Torturously patient MO saddled and ridden wild.
To wit: John Brenner’s vocals nudged through the nose, rafted slowly over Ozzy’s irritating ‘caine-a-tone. Brenner’s guitar playing (smoothly) understated as his throat: Incense smoke swirls, worn leather vest patois. Riffs sustain and often eddy, echoing Carlson’s (
Hex era?) fractal take on Mr. Furry Lewis. Peculiar, yeah. Intriguing, yeah. And more. Rhythm section two parts
Secret Treaties, one part
Master of Reality, where Blue Cheer is threatened more often than Black Widow. The flagrant stutter-step comes with lyrics considering “fragrant stars” or “silken embers.” The poetry dot com bit belongs to Baizley and the sleeve-tatt brood, not a vibrant take on a sub-genre I thought long dead and buried.
[Stewart Voegtlin]
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