review by: Mladen Škot
It's safe to say that Gorefest are back, completely, as good as ever. The two years since their warm-up comeback album, La Muerte, were quite enough to get back in full shape, and some of the cancelled tours just made them angrier. At who? Everyone, really. Rise To Ruin rages against everything that's rotten.
Straightforward and simple, the opening seconds of "Revolt" are still unreachable for most. The enormous drum roll and the hyper-grinding riffs could attract even a dead man's attention.
Jan-Chris De Koeijer's voice is stronger than ever and once again it's time to listen. As low as his roar is, every word is perfectly understandable, and throughout the eleven tracks you can listen to his takes on globalization, religion, and political and social issues. No rest, no mercy, unless you count a break in the middle of "Revolt" with a speaker's report about the world's political and religious leaders being taken out of their offices and shot on the streets. Well, then, play it again! If the vocals aren't enough — and, if the man can sing about mankind breeding like rats and still sound maliciously poignant — there's the music.
The guitar sound is perfect, thick, live, downtuned, but full and accurate so much that nothing remains unnoticed. And what there is to notice are, finally, the songs. Technical when needed, simple when necessary, never a wasted moment. Listen to one moment superficially, and it might be just OK, but listen to it in combination with the following moment and you'll understand: Those are real songs.
There's one hell of a groove in each and every one, the riffs are unashamedly direct and once in a while there will come a subtle, hovering melody above them to just add that one extra layer of atmosphere. Solos? Oh yes, they have them. Both Boudewijn Bonebakker and Frank Harthoorn do them, and remind us of just what the solos used to be, when they weren't just mechanical scales and arpeggios.
There are wonderful melodies during the slow, doomy parts, there are unbelievable pyrotechnics around the relentless parts and let's not forget the melodies. Riffs? Better than ever. Without going into detail... it's Gorefest, damn it. Be it mechanical thrashing, speed picking, palm-muted chords ending with elegant licks or deadly grooves, it's Gorefest. Just as Ed Warby, the rock-steady drummer, whose blastbeats (they just seem too easy to believe he's punching those skins that hard, but he probably is), fills and entrances are nothing short of a Gorefest trademark.
On Rise to Ruin there are no traces of Chapter 13, if you have to ask (but... c'mon, listen to it again, it wasn't that bad, damn it), and if you missed the Mindloss and False days, it will give you everything you hoped for. If you're not familiar with Gorefest by now, what are you waiting for? But beware, what if De Koeijer's "Rats! Filth!" is aimed at you? (8.9/10)
