### Malevolent Creation: Warkult

#### 27/03/09 || The Duff

I’ve been largely ignoring this band for too long, my interest peaking above the “make a purchase”-line of my limited psyche (divided into three compartments, “metal I need to check out”, “pussy I need to jack it to” and “wut’s fer dinna?”) only when the second Class6(66) review of the band (for Retribution) was submitted. Since then, I’ve bought all their albums tagged with GD-forumer recommendation, plus “Warkult” as I had it some years ago, had reviewed it for the site, and was curious to find how my taste in death metal had matured with my wisdom. To put it briefly, I know why Malevolent Creation are thought of as second tier, but for albums like “Retribution”, I have a real soft spot for the band – they’ve written some outstanding, flawless material in their time, and so deserve a less scrupulous ranking system so long as it’s accepted they cannot compete with legendary acts such as Suffocation and Morbid Angel when comparing most recent offerings.

Years back, when I was at University, an old friend of mine who introduced me to death metal told me a very stripped down version of the band’s history – Phil Fasciana was the band’s leader, and kept kicking out/replacing/bringing back and sleeping with numerous members/ex-members of the band so as to suit whatever he wanted at the time – it wasn’t really a five-piece collaboration, so to speak. I don’t know how accurate this is, but I have my suspicions when he’s the only original member who’s been on every one of the band’s albums. Luckily, “Warkult” has a great part of the band’s line-up from the Golden years, chiefly the successful guitar combo of Rob Barrett and Phil Fasciana, plus drum sex-God Dave Culross who brings a certain magic to any album he features on despite his inability to, in my mind, hold his own against other classic drummers of the early nineties. Shame they don’t have Brett Hoffmann; not only because Kyle Symons is a bit of a shit, very average growler, but also because Brett is kingshit vocalist supreme, probably one of the finest, most tortured-sounding howlers to be found in death metal. Oh well…

The material on “Warkult” isn’t up to the standard of “The Will to Kill”, an album I consider an high-point in the band’s career matching the earlier efforts to some degree if only because I seem to be the only death metal fan who can’t stand “Eternal”. Overall, I would state this a solid effort, but disappointing nonetheless – the first two main tracks don’t so much gallop out of the stables, and the riffs are in part quite mediocre as a result – there’s a need for contrast that isn’t delivered. The intro is all fine, reminiscent of the opening of “The Ten Commandments”, and it’s on such slow-paced tracks that you realize Culross’ skill as a musician; he leaves the music comfortably aired out, but you also get the feeling that he fills out all available space (and then his blasts sound like a juggernaut hippo raping a concrete wall, in a good way). As with past efforts, there are hints of black (“Section 8” reminding me very much of Vehemence’s “God Was Created”), which brings flavor, but at the same time you feel it’s somewhat unnecessary. Even the faster tracks don’t bring much back in the album’s favor, the slowest of the bunch being more memorable, but overall the flow of many of the riffs isn’t very fluid, like they took separate standard death metal template riffs and welded them with unstartling results.

Kyle Symons as a vocalist isn’t so bad, in the end, it’s just a huge step down from Hoffmann; an improvement over the dude on “Eternal”, though (God-bless his racist soul), and his lyrics are pretty fucken badass – occasionally, he will deviate from the low-guttural shit (I reckon he sounded a lot better on “The Will to Kill”, so maybe it’s a production faux-pas) and pull off some high-pitched shrieks that are very effective, so he’s not as bad as I may have initially made out. The guitars aren’t anything to write to your Grandmother about, the one who likes to stay in the know of all things the underground death metal scene – I don’t praise Phil Fasciana too much, as I really think he’s in need of The Barrett to make his riffs more purposeful; unfortunately, even the latter has written some very dull material on “Warkult”, and in conclusion, the album doesn’t keep Malevolent Creation in the runnings, nor does it measure up to the band’s past efforts.

6 death metal albums that aren’t “Retribution” out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: Malevolent Creation MySpace
- Band
- Kyle Symons: vocals
- Rob Barrett: guitars
- Phil Fasciana: guitars
- Gordon Simms: bass
- Dave Culross: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Dead march
- 02. Preemptive strike
- 03. Supremacy through annihilation
- 04. Murder reigns
- 05. Captured
- 06. Merciless
- 07. Section 8
- 08. On grounds of battle
- 09. Tyranic oppression
- 10. Ravaged by conflict
- 11. Shock and awe