Revocation creates extreme music for extreme times. On New Gods, New Masters, their fifth record for Metal Blade, the quartet–spearheaded by founder/vocalist/guitarist Dave Davidson–delivers nine potent and portentous songs of brutal lyrical and musical significance.  

Produced by Davidson mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (The Haunted, Spiritbox), tracks including “Cronenberged” (feat. Jonny Davy of Job for a Cowboy), “Sarcophagi of the Soul,” “Confines of Infinity” (feat. Travis Ryan of Cattle Decapitation) and “Dystopian Vermin” thematically explore AI and its impact on humanity. 

“I’ve been very fascinated with the development of Artificial Intelligence, and I’m deeply concerned where this could lead humanity,” says Davidson, “whether it’s the slow march towards a technological dystopia or the all-out annihilation of our species.” 

To wit, “Cronenberged” is about a science experiment gone wrong. Davidson is a massive Sci-Fi horror fan who loves the body horror genre that David Cronenberg helped create; the song is an homage to that. And, Davidson adds, “Shout out to Rick and Morty for inspiring the song title.”

The Boston-bred Davidson credits newest members Harry Lannon (rhythm guitar and backing vocals since 2023) and bassist Alex Weber with a renewed energy and intensity onstage. “It’s been a pleasure ripping with those guys alongside Ash (Pearson), who always crushes it behind the kit.” In terms of his playing, writing, and singing, “I’m always refining my craft and trying to get better,” he says.  

Davidson was excited to welcome a guitar guest—as well as impressive vocal features—on New Gods, New Masters. Revocation had late Black Dahlia Murder singer Trevor Strnad and Corpsegrinder of Cannibal Corpse guesting on Netherheaven, and Davidson recruited more talented peers for New Gods. “I’m honored to have such amazing guests on New Gods. On vocals we have Jonny Davy and Luc Lemay, two vocalists that I really admire who have their own unique sound,” says Davidson. “I remember texting with Jonny about guesting on “Cronenberged” asking him if we wanted to be the personification of a mutated abomination that escapes a testing facility. He was stoked to go as unhinged as possible and his vocals on that track sound truly inhuman.”  

A longtime fan of Gorguts’ Lemay, describing the Canadian singer’s vocals as “brutal but also tortured sounding at times. There’s a lot of emotion in his voice and that came through perfectly on the album closer ‘Buried Epoch.’” Slightly more unexpected is the contribution of jazz player Gilad Hekselman, who played with Pat Metheny at The Kennedy Center and won Rising Star in Downbeat Magazine, among numerous other accolades. He plays on “The All Seeing.” “Gilad is a buddy of mine and happens to be one of the best jazz guitarists in the world. His playing is awe-inspiring, and I’m truly honored to have him as the guest soloist on the outro of ‘The All Seeing.’” 

New Gods, New Masters marks the band’s 20th anniversary. Revocation debuted with 2008’s Empire of the Obscene and subsequently released seven critically acclaimed albums and toured over 25 countries, bringing their technically charged, high-energy extreme metal to North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. New Gods follows up 2022’s Netherheaven, where Davidson’s lyrics took hard looks at Catholicism, hypocrisy, politics, the occult and demonic symbolism. Critics raved about Netherheaven, calling it “ Revocation’s best record in a decade” and praising the “darkest, heaviest songs of their career.” 

That album set a high bar, but an even sharper musical and lyrical focus was achieved on New Gods, New Masters, which is deftly captured in the album artwork by Paolo Girardi. “He did an incredible job of bringing the lyrical themes of a bleak techno-nightmare to life,” Davidson says. “The ‘New God’ being birthed from the abyss of teeth and wires was even better than what I envisioned. I absolutely love the color palette he used. He even included some easter eggs from our first demo and first full-length album cover, which adds even more depth and meaning to the artwork for me.” 

Titling the album New Gods, New Masters reflects his belief about humans’ need to worship various gods. “It seems as if that desire is encoded in our DNA. As science and our understanding of nature and the universe as a whole, increases, the religions of the old gods start to become obsolete,” believes Davidson. “However, I believe we’ve replaced our old gods with new ones, worshipping technology and creating a cult-like idolatry of innovators.”

Revocation, unafraid to upend musical and lyrical tropes with forward-thinking and sounding approach, with songs that excoriate society’s addiction to phones (‘Sarcophagi of the Soul”) and animal experiments that illuminate/replicate societal issues (“Dystopian Vermin”), Davidson’s science-backed observations all the more terrifying for their reality. 

If technological advances create worse problems alongside “solutions,” Revocation forge ahead, four guys plugged in, fighting existential threats with metal, “waiting to see what the next trial of the human experiment brings.”

Music grounds and uplifts the band members—and fans. “I’m proud that I’ve been able to evolve as a musician and songwriter with every release. I never want to stagnate, and I think we’ve achieved real growth with every album,” says Davidson. “I’m also extremely proud that I’ve been able to keep this band going after all these years; it’s crazy to think of how far we’ve since the beginning.”   

Lineup:

 Dave Davidson: Vocals, Guitar
Ash Pearson: Drums
Harry Lannon: Rhythm Guitar
Alex Weber: Bass

HallHammer – Drums
LandPhil – Bass/Vocals
Brent Legion – Guitar

Cannabis corpse was founded by Landphil and Hallhammer in the summer of 2006. The band was a heart felt tribute to smoking pot and the most brutal band in the universe CANNIBAL CORPSE! The original demo “Blunted at Birth” was recorded in the kitchen of a shit hole apt. in “Oregon Hill” a small neighborhood in Richmond VA.
Landphil and Hallhammer wrote and recorded the songs with no vocalist in mind, but since Andy “Weedgrinder” Horn lived in the same Apt. and was known to do extreme metal vocals from time to time he was recruited. After “Blunted at Birth” was complete it was put out as the first release on the fledgling record company “Forcefield Records” The album received a great reaction so Nick was recruited to play as the live guitarist.
Many many shows followed with this line up including two Euro tours, and several treks across the U.S. Landphil and Hallhammer continued to write and record albums including “Tube of the resinated” in 2008 “The Weeding E.P” in 2009 and “Beneath grow lights thou shalt rise” in 2011.
In 2012 Andy and Nick parted ways with the band and Brent “Legion” Pergason was recruited as the new live guitarist and Landphil took over vocal duties. The band continues forward with no end in sight! Stay tuned for more brutality!

Extreme Technical Death Metal from Vancouver, B.C.

For the recent successes of technical death outfit ARCHSPIRE to come into fruition, certain variables must align. Talent, drive, creativitiy, and absolute dedication are only a few characteristics one may notice about the group, and indeed many have experienced the bi-product of these characteristics:

A tight live performance, where impressive speeds come grinding to a halt, and in even less time twist and contort into complex passages rife with beautiful harmonies, juxtaposed against insidious melodies. An attention to songwriting, focusing not only on technicality, but originality as well, take this sub genre and put it on it’s ear. And the combination of musical backgrounds, which is apparent in much of ARCHSPIRE’S music, showing itself through catchy rhythms, interesting riffs and arrangements, and progressive passages.

Pushing boundaries of speed and endurance set only by the genre’s top artists, while remaining accessible and interesting is no small feat. These Canadians have proven themselves worthy of touring and playing with bands like Origin, Decapitated, Hate Eternal, Abysmal Dawn, Vomitory, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and Aborted.

When all the elements required align in such a way that they form something original, and interesting, it becomes a catalyst for something new… and in the case of ARCHSPIRE, All has indeed, Aligned.

As seen on the “Unsigned and Unholy” Metalsucks feature, Midwestern progressive thrashers BLACK FAST has a short but concentrated history. Formed in 2010 by fellow music students Aaron Akin, Trevor Johanson, Ryan Thompson and Ross Burnett , BLACK FAST has been melting faces and sharing the stage with bands like Havok, Vektor, Toxic Holocaust, Cavalera Conspiracy, Revocation, Forbidden, Warbringer, Nachtmystium, Enabler, Lazarus AD, and Agrimonia.

Black Fast recorded a self-titled EP in 2011 and in August 2013 they self-released their first full-length album, ‘Starving Out the Light,’ which helped them win accolades like ‘Best Thrash Metal” album in the 2013 Metal Storm Awards.

ROMAN RING was formed by members of Small Town Murder as the next step in an evolutionary process. An anomaly amongst the Chicago metal scene, Roman Ring fuses together elements rarely heard from their local peers. Combining blistering speed and technicality with passages of polyrhythmic grooves along with other-worldy influences. Their music will take you on a journey to another dimension before bringing you back to this earth as an evolved being.