It took five years for BENEDICTION to follow up their 2020 album Scriptures with the long-awaited Ravage Of Empires. That's a long time, but not only were there a few unpleasant years that you'd rather forget, the Brits were also on the road quite a lot: with the one and only BENEDICTION front man Dave Ingram back at the mic (no offense meant, Dave Hunt, it is as it is), the band toured both successfully and extensively and could also be seen at a number of festivals.

Of course (and I mean this in an explicitly positive way) there are no big surprises with BENEDICTION: Driven by drummer Giovanni Durst, who joined the band in 2020 together with his Omicida colleague and bassist Dan, the two founding members, guitarists Peter and Darren, prove that they did not lose a beat even after 36 years of band history. Add the voice of Dave Ingram (in my opinion the best death metal vocalist of them all), and it's virtually impossible not to end up with a good album.

Ravage Of Empires offers the accustomed BENEDICTION sound featuring brutal, thunderous riffs, a fair share of groovy headbanging passages and the occasional thrash and hardcore punk borrowings. But despite the overarching “standard sound”, the individual tracks are (within the limits of the genre) quite varied. The album opens relatively straightforward and without frills, but three tracks in, Genesis Chamber and Deviant Spine put the brakes on and introduce several great mid-tempo riffs. These two songs immediately reminded me of my favorite album by the band, Transcend The Rubicon. Crawling Over Corpses and Psychosister, on the other hand, are proof that BENEDICTION still know how to seamlessly weave subtle melodies and hooks with crashing guitars into a seamless and dense wall of sound. Then again, Engines Of War and In The Dread Of The Night (the latter with a nice little nod to Slayer) will satisfy lovers of the faster pace without slipping into blasting dullness.
Compliments also to Scott Atkins, who had already produced Scriptures. I don't know what I would want to improve about the sound.

With BENEDICTION, it's pretty much like being with an old friend you've known for many decades and who now lives in another part of the country: you don't see each other very often anymore, but when you do, you pick up seamlessly where you left off and get on as well as ever - even if, of course, not everything is as “exciting” as it used to be when you were younger. In other words, the “magic” that the music had in the early 1990s (at least for me) can never be recaptured, that’s just the nature of time and growing older. But looking past the veil of nostalgia, Ravage Of Empires is as close as it gets to “the good old days”. I hardly ever listen to death metal anymore when I’m not at a concert/festival, and when I do, it's mostly very old albums by BENEDICTION and now (since the quasi-comeback) for the first time in what feels like ages, also very new ones.
Ravage Of Empires is not only a must-have for every fan of the band, but also - as always – simply excellent old school death metal that even after almost four decades doesn't have to shy away from comparison with “younger” bands - on the contrary, BENEDICTION are still right up there at the top.