Revolting - Born to Be Dead (2022)

Has anyone come up with a comprehensive death metal discography for 'Revolting' Rogga Johansson yet? He must now have hundreds of albums under his belt across scores of projects, and while this was a thing I used to try and keep up with, I feel as if I've been left behind in the last decade. Revolting was actually one of the bands I would have considered among his 'core' projects once upon a time, along with a Ribspreader or Paganizer, but to be truthful these three and several of his others cross the streams a bit when it comes to cultivating a truly distinct identity. At any rate, Born to Be Dead, this project's eighth proper full-length, exhibits the same level of professionalism and genre knowledge that Rogga's spews everywhere, and it's the sort of album that, barring anything else available to you from the same niche, is a pretty good time that covers all the bloody bases successfully enough.

There is definitely a heavy, thick 'Swedish' sound to this one reminiscent of Entombed and Dismember, but with a lot of mournful, melodic playing attached which might be more akin to classic Desultory, but it all merges into a satisfactory package, assuming you aren't seeking out much complexity, or tunes that are going to roll around your memory for much time beyond that you spend listening to it. The low end churns along wonderfully, with perfectly balanced rhythm guitars doing their D-beat or tremolo picked riffs, omni present bass swells and thundering, precision percussion, all forming this seat that the simple melodies and the raunchy growls can settle into comfortably, but beyond just a handful of riffs, the tracks rarely go anywhere that exciting. All of them have been heard in similar configurations, even by this very same artist, and though they have a general timelessness about them that scratch my Swedeath itches, the tracks don't really stand out against one another.

If it sounds like Rogga can write 50 of these tunes in a single day, that's because he probably can...the guy LIVES death metal, in fact if we had to choose an avatar for this beloved medium on Earth, he might be the very one, but that doesn't prevent a bit of complacency and also-ran mentality from the meat & potatoes of this band's style and catalogue. I was a bit more fond of the earlier Revolting albums, but many of them have all started to blend together, not that this one is egregiously weak, or weak at all...no, most of us would happily band our heads along to the thick, syrupy production and purity of the style, but some of Johansson's projects have gone a little further out on the limbs in recent years, and while Born to Be Dead LOOKS amazing, and sounds very damn solid, it just can't cross the 'decent' threshold into something more impressive and impactful. 

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/revoltingdeathmetal/

Revolting - Monolith of Madness (2018)

I wish I could numerate Rogga's death metal records so that when reviewing them I could mumble about how this was the *****th iteration of his career, but let's just settle with the fact that whether or not you dig his projects, this Swede is an utter institution unto himself and shows no signs of slowing down. Revolting is one of his bands, similar to a Paganizer or Ribspreader, which represents the 'core' of his sound, that is to say traditional Swedish death of the early to mid 90s laden with melodies and then slight variations from project to project...one might be more brutal, another a little more thrashing, another doomy, and so forth. It's also one of his myriad bands that I've found most successful at delivering a consistent quality, even if that comes at the expense of originality, innovation, etc. I'm not implying that Revolting is exceptional or unique in any way, nor have they produced any death metal masterworks, but if you're seeking another album to remind you of those glorious years when Entombed and Dismember were first breaking out into international audiences, you could do a lot worse than randomly shuffle through this particular discography.

The 6th album, Monolith of Madness, while not the best of this project, is entirely competent death metal driven by d-beats and Floridian tremolo picking runs sodden with the downcast melodies that his forebears first manifest in the later 80s when they were spitting out demo material. It's never quite as evil as it looks like on the cover with its Cthulhu kraken and accompanying...witches on brooms...but you get a fair balance of forward propulsion, churning grooves and proficient leads that favor mood and atmosphere over flash and flair. I do feel like the bulk of the songs here can lapse into samey passages, almost all of which involve the same damn beat at some point, so more work could be done on intros, bridges and so forth to really round them out and distinguish them better from their neighbors, but I think at this point you know exactly what you're getting on a Rogga album, and if you've come this far listening to the guy then you might not even be interested in him varying up the formula much, at least not internally to one band, since he does this form project to project to mirror varying influences or 'eras' in death metal that he wishes to pay tribute.

You know what to expect. That's both the strength and weakness, because while this is written and performed at no less a level as a couple dozen other Swedish throwback bands that populate the F.D.A. Records imprint and its peers, there is probably not a single riff on the entire album that had me thinking 'cool', and wanting to spin it again immediately. The overall effect of Monolith of Madness in the background, while I'm reading through or playing my many Lovecraftian board games or role playing games, is not terribly worthy of its subject matter, because it's just never creepy or haunting, atmospheric or lingering, but Rogga has long directed this brand at a very straight shooting, 'fun' take on the horror genre which does effectively breed some nostalgia. Taken as it is, I think it's yet another solid effort in a long string of solid efforts that perhaps focus too much on being 'solid' and nothing more than that, and I wouldn't mind a higher ratio of ambition > frequency of musical output, but that doesn't completely detract from the moderate level of abusive darkness you're getting from this. Admittedly, my enjoyment of Revolting peaked with the first two albums, Dreadful Pleasures and The Terror Threshold, but this one won't disappoint much if you're looking for another In Grisly Rapture or Visages of the Unspeakable.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Revolting-144322252254789/

Revolting - Hymns of Ghastly Horror (2012)

Awaken to the alarm clock. Brush teeth. Make breakfast. Death metal. Lunch. Death metal. Dinner. Death metal. This is surely the daily cycle of 'Revolting' Rogga, the man who must by this point have the broadest personal investment and discography in all the genre, the world over. Revolting is not one of his most long-lived projects to date, but he's managed to release one full-length per year in addition to his prolific schedule elsewhere. The 2009 debut, Dreadful Pleasures remains my favorite of these, even after listening through Hymns of Ghastly Horror a few times, but all the albums have more or less maintained the same general quality and theme, and you're getting exactly what the trio is advertising: some of the most campy, horror-inspired, frightful kitsch outside the Razorback roster.

In terms of sheer sound and recording aesthetics, Revolting is barely a decapitated head's throw away from a few of Rogga's other bands Ribspreader and Paganizer. The chunky Swedish tone is implemented over a variety of riffing patterns, many of which trace their lineage back to the usual suspects like Entombed, Dismember, Grave or Unleashed, but others surprisingly melodic in the vein of something like At the Gates or the more recent Evocation material. Hymns of Ghastly Horror is in fact a decently varied record, whether it's the morbid death & roll of instrumental "The Thing That C.H.U.D. Not Be" with its charming samples from the cult mutant flick, or "Their Thoughts Can Kill" or "Psychoplasmics" which are threaded with copious speed thrashing rhythms, or the denser, hilarious chug-fest of "Kinderfeeder". There are at least a dozen hooks through the 36 minutes which beg for a replay, despite the fact that a lot of the progressions seem samey to anyone who has followed the Swedish death revival in the past decade. The rhythm section of Grotesque Tobias and Mutated Martin is as dependable as ever, even if they're not doing anything much else than support Rogga's endless supply of riffs.

Actually, whilst comparable to its predecessors, Hymns of Ghastly Horror might just have the best overall production for this project to date, nearly on par with Rogga's higher profile Demiurg. Guitars are sodden and repulsive, yet the melodies and brief leads scream through the mix. Vocals are loud and reliable, often molded in L-G Petrov's hoarse tension, but often even more brutal and guttural as if they were drawing more influence from early Dutch or USDM. The colorful subject matter of the lyrics is, as usual, incredibly fun, especially for those who love cheesy horror/sci-fi flicks and don't take it all so seriously. Serial killers ("The Hatchet Murders"), extraterrestrial threats ("Ravenous Alien Spawn"), even what seems like a little Italian giallo horror gets a nod. Revolting enjoys their cult cinema, and they celebrate it much like the more festive of us give our patronage to haunted houses, hayrides and horror cons. Hymns of Ghastly Horror might not be anything out of the ordinary, or much of an accomplishment for a man that might just release a dozen albums by next month, but it's solid entertainment. Better than last year's In Grisly Rapture, thought it falls just shy of the first two records.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Revolting/144322252254789

Revolting - In Grisly Rapture (2011)

It's occurred to me that Rogga Johansson might not actually be a single, distinct entity, but more a series of human clones reared on the classic death metal of the 90s. This army of identical twins is bent on single (errr...many-handedly) overrunning the entire sub-genre of Swedish death metal, slightly edging out the scumbags and poseurs until it consists of merely him and his selves, and those lucky enough to be his co-conspirators. Revolting is one of his myriad projects, and one of the best at summoning forth the composure of forebears Entombed, Grave, Dismember, Edge of Sanity and Unleashed into the now, with an endless series of originally but admittedly derivative songs that will have much of the purist audience in heat to grind their teeth on its meat.

In Grisly Rapture immediately seems somehow more...serious than either of its predecessors. Not that the decapitated heads, bloodied stumps and genitals on the cover are an indicator, but just through the composition alone. Stylistically, it's not a far cry from either Dreadful Pleasures or The Terror Threshold, but there's a more sour sense for melody inherent in tracks like the opener "Hell in Dunwich", "The Plague of Matul" or the bridge of "Human Exterminator". Then again, this is just the opening batch of material. Later on the album, we have "Dr. Freudstein", "Sucked Into the Sand" and the rockin' "Devil Witch", all of which bring back that frivolous flare, that inanity which distinguished the earlier records as all too fitting for the Razorback roster.

Unfortunately, while this is indeed a solid set of riffs with some obvious care placed in their construction, I just didn't find it to live up to the last release. To Rogga's credit, he does not seem exhausted or entirely out of steam here. There is some fraction of creativity being applied to the riffs, even if they're largely paraphrased from the genre classics, or his own work in other bands like Demiurg, Paganizer, and Ribspreader. The production is good, the vocals and guitar tone all too sincere, but unlike Dreadful Pleasures or The Terror Threshold, I was not struck with the immediate desire to keep spinning through its contents. Not a waste of productivity, and perhaps satisfactory to diehards for all things this sub-genre, but the guy's done a lot of better albums than this and I'm sure he will again in the future. Ghoulish good, but not ghastly great.

Verdict: Indifference [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/revoltingdeath

Revolting - The Terror Threshold (2010)

It must be hard being Revolting Rogga Johansson, the man of a hundred faces, each a death metal band (at the least the majority of them). Where does he draw the line between each of his projects? How does he keep all of their material straight in his head? Would he just tour as himself, picking and choosing from the vast arsenal of material produced through Ribspreader, Paganizer, Carve, Demiurg, Putrevore, The Grotesquery, Foreboding, etc.? How does the man partition his brain so that the various outlets don't run on with one another?

As long as he's putting out work like Revolting, which I'd consider one of his better bands overall, the answer to all of the above is: who cares. The Terror Threshold is the second full-length from this project, following up on last year's Dreadful Pleasures, and Rogga has seen fit to expand this release through the inclusion of a previously unavailable EP known as the Bonesaw Leftovers. That's 8 more tunes stacked on to the 9 here, for a total of 17 tracks and over 52 minutes of glorious, tongue in cheek old school Swedish death metal. Like many Razorback artists, Rogga takes much of his lyrical influence for this project from old sci-fi and horror films, and pairs it up with a grinding death motif which pays tribute to the forefathers of that scene: Entombed, Dismember, Grave, etc.

There is nothing terribly original happening throughout The Terror Threshold. It's certainly not the type of album that will appeal to the innovation seeker or the hallowed hipster. Regardless, it's ghoulish, harmless fun with the same consistency and quality of the debut effort (which was great), and has a little more depth than you might think. Good examples are "The Grip of Death", which infuses more than the normal dose of morbid melody into the grinding d-beat rhythms that so many of these retro bands simply cannot see beyond. Or the rather unusual, discordant streams of chords that wind through the intro to "Grotesque Beyond Belief". Or the killer, atmospheric melodies that cut through "Harvest the Humans", which remind me of earlier Unanimated or The Crown.

If you just want your spine carved in, well, Revolting can do that too: "Bloodthirsty Bitches", "Horror Hooker", "Destructive Organism", and the riotous "Head in the Fridge" have you covered. Some of the grimier numbers that close out the Bonesaw Leftovers EP are also quote good, especially the title track. "Grizzly Aftermath" is hilarious. Yeah. That's right. A death metal song about being mauled by a bear. The best thing about this, of course, is that you probably haven't heard that material before, so you can treat this all as one gigantic sophomore love letter to days when things were far simpler than this season's wank-off marathon of angst-ridden teenage barbarian 'virtuosos' attempting to one up each other while they dream wetly and often of Kristen Stuart and Amanda Seifert.

It's a great value, and few of the 17 tracks leave anything but a fond impression, but I do feel like the previous album was slightly stronger on the whole. But The Terror Threshold is the perfect fit for Razorback Records, and those of you who go postal over bands like Blood Freak, Ghoul, Frightmare, Crypticus, Vacant Coffin, or nearly anything else on that roster will have a field day with this one.

Highlights: Sure, especially Grizzly Aftermath. Because it's a bear. Killing a dude.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.myspace.com/revoltingdeath

Revolting - Dreadful Pleasures (2009)

Another colorfully retro death metal album cover and another excellent taste of Razorback Records' ear for quality new artists paying their respects to the classic death and gore metal of yore. Revolting performs a Swedish old school style akin to countrymen Paganizer, Ribspreader, and Repugnant, and it's really no surprise: this is yet another band to feature the vocals of old school Swede guru Revolting Rogga Johansson, who is a member of two of the aforementioned bands (as well as Demiurg, Carve, Putrevore and a host of others). Once again, he's done well for himself. This is quite good; there isn't a moment on Dreadful Pleasures during which I wasn't entertained. The songs are crafted simply and effectively in the vein of old At the Gates/Grotesque, Entombed and Dismember.

"Tenayfly Viper" opens with its grinding and bouncing guitars beneath a noodly and messy lead, but like all great Swedish death it has one of those trademark melodies. "Terror Has No Shape" busts out like total Left Hand Path/Clandestine bliss, and again with the melody. Many of the other tracks follow suite. "Overtaken by the Crawling" has some creepy breakdowns and very evil sounding riffs. "Moonshine Mutation" is one of my favorites on the album, with a classy melodic riff, and "Brainwaves of Death" is also really cool.

Lyrically the band focuses on cult horror and sci fi camp, tracks about freaky monsters and mad scientists. This falls in line with a lot of Razorback's thematic acts like Ghoul and Crypticus, and will certainly please connoisseurs. It's also an easy recommendation if you like just about any of Rogga's other current or past bands. The guy is prolific, I have to admit. Granted, the differences are very subtle between this and some of his other retro styled bands, but it's enough.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/revoltingdeath