BENEDICTION - Ravage of Empires

While it’s awesome that Benediction has managed to remain actively relevant playing live and releasing new material, it’s important to note that no new ground is broken with these current efforts. These artists aren’t youngsters anymore these are seasoned veterans doing what they do best, playing no-nonsense death metal.

Benediction is a British death metal band from Birmingham, England. They’ve been around in some form since 1989. The group has released 9 studio albums, their latest effort is titled Ravage of Empires, which was just unveiled back in April via Nuclear Blast Records.

Benediction plays an extreme style of music which one would consider classical death metal meshed with a thrashy groove. Think Death Leprosy meets Jungle Rot What Horrors Await, and you should have a good idea as to what this band sounds like.

It’s been 5 years since the comeback album, Scriptures, was released. I was a big fan of the effort and was happy to hear vocalist Dave Ingram was back in the fold. In my mind he’s Benediction’s most prolific voice and I imagined how awesome it would be to hear classic tracks from The Grand Leveller and Transcend The Rubicon live.

While Ravage of Empires is a decent effort, it’s what I would consider a ‘safe album’. Benediction did not deviate from the death metal formula that has been successful for the group thus far. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, the number of songs on this release seems a bit crazy. 11 tracks are simply too much for my ears and overall attention span. Cutting it down to 8 would have eliminated the redundancy and showcased the standout offerings found on this release. Highlight tracks for me are: “A Carrion Harvest”, “Beyond the Veil (of the Grey Mare)”, “Engines of War”, and “Crawling Over Corpses”.

While it’s awesome that Benediction has managed to remain actively relevant playing live and releasing new material. It’s important to note that no new ground is broken with these current efforts. These artists aren’t youngsters anymore these are seasoned veterans doing what they do best, playing no-nonsense death metal. Check out Benediction’s Ravage of Empires and let this classic attack annihilate you! \m/