Seprevation - Consumed

Don’t let the seductive opening notes on track one fool you. This is a hard-hitting album.

Seprevation have taken fury and turned it into thrash. This album combines the aggression of punk and the unpredictable progressions of metal to create an incredible 10-track debut, titled Consumption. Not for fans of slow, relaxing music such as Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez, this album makes you want to get up and jump around – needless to say there shall be mosh pits galore at live performances, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people lost a tooth or two.

The second track of the album, Servants Of Suffering, starts off at around a zillion beats per minute, yet progresses into a wonderful breakdown of guitar soloing fit for metal heads. It wouldn’t be out of place in a 70s or 80s heavy rock band – however, constant Lamb Of God-style double bass pedal and harsh growling vocals resembling heavy Opeth quickly brings you back from the transcendent solo and straight back into mosh mode (where you might get back to losing your other teeth).

With clear influences from early thrash Metallica, and of course, thrash gods Slayer, we have Consumed. This album is a non-stop, fast-paced machine, and the only thing lacking is enough time to catch your breath. Al Gore would shiver at the amount of energy this band uses up.

However, the band do, sadly, start to lack some diversity towards the end of the album; a change in tone wouldn’t go amiss here. It feels like this machine only has one setting. Fifth track, Dreams, certainly has the feel of Canadian rock band, Rush - I can imagine Rush’s guitarist, Alex Lifeson, coming up with a similar riff himself. Yet the track doesn’t stay very Rush-like for long, and goes back into the classic thrash-metal category. Dreams stands out as the experimental track, where the band really have a go at expressing themselves in a different style.

Seprevation have a definite theme throughout this album. The band, at least according to the main lyrical concepts, are in search of hope from the world and are trying to get a grip on reality.

Reality has now passed your mortality I have grasped.

This fragment is from ninth track, Postmortem Lividity, in which the band brutally describe the discovery of a mangled victim. The lyrical genius of this song keeps you fascinated, even bearing in mind the gruesome content that you’re listening to.

It has to be said that the lyrics on Consumed are not only poetic marvel, but they also serve as inspiration due to their originality. Unfortunately, I only found this out when researching the lyrics online; listening to the harsh growling vocals on record it can be very hard to distinguish exactly what has been said.

The album has little change in genre and is simply pure thrash. Wonderful for a heavy live performance where you want to let loose for an hour, yet tiring to listen to at home after too long. But hey, it works for Slayers’ Rein In Blood, so why not for these guys?