positive punk: BENEDICTION

10.16.2020

BENEDICTION

"scriptures"
Year: 2020
Country: UK
City: Birmingham
Label: Nuclear Blast
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 46 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Death Metal

The last time I seriously considered Benediction must’ve been on their The Grotesque / Ashen Epitaph EP. That was 1994. Now, I know all 27 people who bought and will defiantly defend The Dreams You Dread (and the three albums after it) are already lining up on Facebook to call me derogatory British words they fully don’t understand, but that’s life, and Benediction, for better or worse, have been writing middling, paint-not-peeling music for too long.

Scriptures finds not only the return of frontman Dave Ingram after 21 years away, but founding members/guitarists Peter Rew and Darren Brookes very spirited, as if they’re 19 again. This is still the hardscrabble, workaday (West) Midlands-style of death metal that put Benediction and many famous others on the map—make no mistake. There are no flutes, keytars or light-up electronic hardware to be found on Scriptures. That’s right—this is straight-up, arms-folded, circle-pit death metal from the factory.

It’s as simple as it is effective. Ingram towers over songs like “Iterations of I,” “The Crooked Man,” “We Are Legion” and early single “Rabid Carnality.” And Rew and Brookes are riffing (and soloing!) like they’re the British equivalent of heyday Rick Hunolt and Gary Holt. Indeed, there’s a fresh stab of kinetic energy in Benediction’s eighth full-length. That’s the kind of deal the two guitarists imbued on my fave EP, or maybe they’re feeling the challenge of newcomer/drum whiz Giovanni Dürst, whose previous experience in White Wizzard, Omicida and Monument is providing much-needed thrash-power metal oomph.

Expect not to be floored by innovation or intrepid, progressive ventures into former vocalist Dave Hunt’s scary backyard. What you should be ready for is unadulterated, thrashing death metal the English way ( Chris Dick ).

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"killing music"
Year: 2008
Label: Nuclear Blast
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 15
Time: 40 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Death Metal

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"organised chaos"
Year: 2001
Label: Nuclear Blast
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 40 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Death Metal

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"grind bastard"
Year: 1998
Label: Nuclear Blast
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 14
Time: 45 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Death Metal

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"the dreams you

Year: 1995

Label: Nuclear Blast

Format: CD, LP

Tracks: 11

Time: 45 min.

Genre: rock

Style: Death Metal

Ill be honest and frank, Benediction are a band I got into just recently, I am talking only about a month to three weeks so not long but long enough to get two of there albums, those be "Killing Music" and this masterpiece of mid-paced DM "The Dreams You Dread". Around 1995 the death metal scene was going stagnant and many bands around this time disbanding and breaking up (Carcass comes to mind along with Pestilence), but some braved the waters (Deicide, Death, Cannibal Corpse to name a few) but those releases were not the best they could have been, and I admit is a horrible time for any fan of metal, but lo and behold this hidden masterpiece comes to show me that it was not and that sound and feeling was still there. The band is competent in itself and it shows very well, the bass is audible and can be heard clanking along at higher volumes, the guitars are nice, crunchy and clean sounding, the drums are some of the best sounding I've heard. The vocals are a bit of a problem, Dave Ingram is probally known from being the vocalist of Bolt Thrower from 1998 to 2004, and listening to "Honor Valour Pride" he can get low but on this he seems to sound like a guy with a sore throat and not trying at all, but yet the vocals in themselves are cool, its unknown why but they are. Onto the songs the album starts with "Down on Whores (Leave Them All for Dead)" the album opener and a sign of things to come, beginning with clean guitars then then a good riff coming in this lasts till 42 seconds in, we get a change in the riffs and the bass pulling a little solo between chords on the guitars, the song proper begins at 2:05 and here we get the full assault of a band so with the music its fucking mind blowing. While the album its mostly mid-paced death metal theres two speedy tracks in being track two "Certified...?" and the title song "The Dreams You Dread", but going in for the music all the tracks stand on there own and hold and draw you in. This is definitely in every sense of the word metal, its no holds barred and doesn't give a shit what you think, it is what it is and doesn't fucking disappoint. (*Review Brandon Mistler ).

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