(written by Islander)
The Alberta-based black/death metal band Revelator named their debut album Light The Devil’s Fire, and that is exactly what they attempt to do in their music — to wake up Lucifer, to ignite his flames to bonfire intensity, and to ascend with them to heights of evil glory.
Bold words those, but we can back them up today with a full streaming premiere of Revelator‘s revels in advance of the album’s September 12 release by Nameless Grave Records.
photos by TJ Williams
To set the stage for people whose eyes haven’t yet been opened to Revelator, they were born in Edmonton in 2017 (undoubtedly shrouded by sulphurous fumes) and eventually expanded to a fully weaponized lineup whose experience includes participation in Ouroboros, Gloria Diaboli, Weapon, Begrime Exemious, Reliquary, and more. Their new album follows a pair of self-released demos from 2018 and 2019.
As for the album’s inspiration, we’ll share this statement from the band:
“Light The Devil’s Fire stands as a testament to the unyielding Will made manifest through flame and storm. Conceived amid personal crucibles and spiritual warfare, the album channels lunar necromancy and iron devotion into a sound both regal and ruinous. Musically, it forges the mysticism of second-wave black metal with the militant grandeur of epic heavy metal — where serpentine tremolo riffs clash with martial rhythms, commanding vocals, and occult melodies that exalt darkness as sovereignty. Each track radiates triumphant evil, invoking visions of torchlit processions and thrones carved from ash. This is not merely an album — it is a ritual of ascent.”
More bold words! And Revelator immediately back them up with the album’s opening song “The Numberless Mysteries of Nameless Entities”.
There, they drench the listener in sinister harmonic riffing that menacingly swarms and ecstatically slithers, and they back it with magma-strength bass convulsions and neck-snapping beats. With drums hammering, they turn up the swirling heat of the fast and intricate fretwork and bring in ravenous howls and rabid screams.
At full burn, the music sounds like an infernal orgy, a whirling and darting fretwork extravaganza pierced by shrieks and delirious squirming from the lead guitar, paired with rumbling and tumbling drums and lividly bubbling bass notes. The song does indeed radiate triumphant evil, an electrifying manifestation of devilish jubilation.
In the following 10 songs Revelator continue revealing their mastery of fiendishly addictive riffing, elaborately filigreed guitar-leads, pulse-punching and skull-smacking beats with a very high degree of dynamic variation (rarely reliant on blast-beats), and hell-spawned vocal malignancy — but they do other things as well.
Within “Death Serenade”, whose piercing guitar-leads are magnetically captivating, they also create auras of diabolical menace, black-magic sorcery, and occult magnificence (as well as luciferian delirium). It’s understandable why Revelator chose to lead with “The Numberless Mysteries of Nameless Entities”, but “Death Serenade” is a more multi-faceted and complete display of their talents.
“By the Whip” proves to be even more crazed and more violent than the album opener, and quite likely to send mosh pits into a sweaty, bruising froth, while “He Who Reveals Grand Wisdom” and “Perpetual Undeath” revive feelings of sinister menace and evil yet mesmerizing incantations, and the more mid-paced “Bapho-Maria” conjures visions of daunting draconic majesty and torchlit brimstone vapors, while also including a beautifully nimble bass performance (one of many across the album).
Not to diminish the performances of the obviously talented rhythm section, or the viciousness of the demonic vocal outbursts, but it’s the sizzling and swirling guitars and their dazzling escapades (especially the harmonized dual-guitar dances, of which the title song furnishes a great example) that continue seizing attention and firing the imagination as we move from track to track. (Don’t miss the spectacular guitar solo in “Lest Thee Be Vexed”.)
The guitar performances make the music head-spinning while simultaneously creating melodic manifestations entirely in line with the band’s statement of what the album is all about. Occasionally Revelator wisely downshift their tempo to create more occult and menacing moods, but they thrive when driving at thrashing speed and deliriously raising hell (“We Who Reign With the Devil” being another prime example of that)
In a nutshell, throughout the album Revelator do sound like they were possessed by the devil when making it, and were equally bent on spreading the possession in all its dangerous glory to their listeners. Time for you to understand this for yourselves:
REVELATOR is:
The Incantor – harmonic terror, demonic summonings
The Heretic – hammering of skulls, satanic wrath
The Iconoclastic – Satan’s harp, perverted whispers
The Heathen – thunder of the ancient gods
Light The Devil’s Fire was recorded by Rob Lawless at Lawless Recordings, mixed by Derek Orthner at Derek Orthner Audio, mastered by Drew Copland and Vector Sound, and was completed with cover art by Christine Angela, and layout by Alasdair Rintoul.
Nameless Grave will release Light The Devil’s Fire on CD and digitally this Friday, September 12th. Preorders can be placed at the label webshop and Bandcamp via the links below. They recommend it for fans of Desaster, Mortuary Drape, Nifelheim, Bewitched, Hellhammer, Venom, and Archgoat.
PRE-ORDER:
https://namelessgraverecords.com/
https://revelator2.bandcamp.com/album/light-the-devils-fire
REVELATOR:
https://revelator2.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/RevelatorCanadianBlackDeath
https://www.instagram.com/revelator_witching.metal.cultc
NAMELESS GRAVE:
https://www.namelessgraverecords.com
https://www.facebook.com/NamelessGraveRecords
https://www.instagram.com/namelessgraverecords
https://namelessgraverecords.bandcamp.com