Revocation and Vektor

I think these 2 bands are some of the best technical / progressive thrash metal bands around that the moment.

Vektor is known to many by now and tend to have a more old school sound, although unique in its own right. Revocation is more modern sounding and perhaps a bit more eclectic stylistically, being influenced a vast number of sub-genres in metal. Unlike Vektor, Revocation's production is a bit more polished and there is a certain sense of precision, whereas with Vektor the sound is somewhat 'looser', perhaps rawer giving it that indelible 80s influence - in a sense, ever since I heard Vektor, I thought of their sound as being a combination between late 80s Voivod and mid 80s Fates Warning.

Revocation's style to my ears is rooted in late 70s / early 80s Rush, their style of precision reminds me very much of a mixture between Hemispheres, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures. Their metallic side draws on influences from the old school 80s thrash scene but also the gothenburg scene of the mid-late 90s yet without copying any specific bands.

I think both of these bands deserve a lot of praise for bringing something familiar yet also very fresh to the metal scene. It is true that we are again being inundated by thrash metal bands. I am not complaining in that regard as we were really starved of traditional sounding thrash for a good number of years. However, when bands like Vektor and Revocation hit the scene there is a sense of excitement that this genre still has life in it and it was brought back merely for nostalgic reasons or as reactionary expression to today's trends in the metal scene.

i've never heard Revocation, but Vektor isn't for me. i've tried to like them, but it's just not doing it for me.

That's the thing, both Vektor and Revocation are the type of bands that are likely to have niche (i.e. limited) appeal since they are not the sort of straight forward style of thrash metal inspired by Slayer, Kreator etc.

I think they are likely to appeal to anyone who likes bands like Voivod, Mekong Delta, Sadus and the like. None of those bands had very wide appeal to thrash metal fans, despite having their fair share of fans. I think the same scenario is likely with Vektor and Revocation - both will have and currently have their fair share of fans but neither will be quite as popular as Evile or Toxic Holocaust (from the perspective of the new wave of 'traditional'-sounding thrash bands).

On that note, it could be argued that these two bands are continuing conceptually at least progressive / technical thrash that the few bands I mentioned above toyed with in the late 80s / early 90s.

I've not heard Revocation.

Mekong Delta is great!

Some Revocation songs:

Dismantle the Dictator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmg3jr7Bhfo

Chaos of Form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bOHF9m0m8k

ultmetal wrote:

Mekong Delta is great!

i like them too!

me like Mekong Delta too

How is it so many people here dont know of revocation? I know their probably close to, and more known in the death metal scene but wow!

Revocation are great. Vektor bore me to death.

Vektor are ok, Reocation is terrible.

Sadus didn't have a wide appeal to thrash fans? Where were you living? They were pretty big!

Where was I living? i am 28 and you are nearly 40 my friend.

In your day maybe people knew about Sadus but in my time you'd be lucky to find anyone who knows about Sadus.

Alex Dee Rokket wrote:

Where was I living? i am 28 and you are nearly 40 my friend.

In your day maybe people knew about Sadus but in my time you'd be lucky to find anyone who knows about Sadus.

Hmm, about 5 years ago when I spent a lot of time talking to anybody into metal on facebook, all the teenagers into thrash metal knew who SADUS are, but this has raises a point.
In the mid to late 1980s, bands released some kind of release, an LP, or 7 inch or 12 inch single or EP, a music video, something, anything, even a track on some compilation LP, at least every 6 or 8 months to keep in the public's eye, get mentioned in magazines, fanzines, get play on college radio metal shows.

A lot of those bands didn't work as hard as Nuclear Assault or Slayer and years later, guess some younger folks who don't look back, have no idea.

I don't excuse that though, because as a pre-teen/early teen, before I got into metal, I was into 1960s rock and was buying old magazines and borrowing books and always turning the radio dial trying to learn everything I could.
The music and bands was 10 years out of date, but if I talked to an older person , and they mentioned a band not as well known like the Yardbirds or The Beatles, I still knew who they were and what they sounded like.

As it normally is the case on a forum, things can easily be misinterpreted. However, a band like Sadus was not very well known when I was getting into metal and this was at a time when metal in the general domain was dead and gone. Although there were bands like Slayer and Megadeth around releasing new albums and the like, in the pre-internet era (unless you knew someone who had been into metal in the 80s and I for one did not) it was almost impossible to discover these bands.

Music stores were still around but by the time i was getting into metal, the selection of metal albums sold in stores was limited to the few well known bands , not Sadus, not Voivod, not Mekong Delta and not even Nuclear Assault. You would be lucky if you found an album by Testament. Such were the times in the mid-late 90s in Australia.

So of course when the internet came around, and metal websites started to pop up it became easier to find out about these bands and thanks for file sharing hear their music for the first time. Also, the situation was not comparable to 60s or 70s rock bands. In both those cases you could actually still hear those bands on the radio - not so with metal.

These days of course there is "no excuse" - if you are into metal you have instant access to any band you never heard of before. With so much information around any teenager who was not even concieved in the 80s can have an informed conversation about an old school band and profess some degree of knowledge. It doesn't surprise me therefore that the teens you spoke to 5yrs ago knew about Sadus.

I should stress that most of you also live in the US where many of these bands originated and had a following. Their albums were also more accessible than they ever were in Australia. Not to say that metal albums could not be found here but again it was primarily limited to the internationally known bands like Maiden and the like.

If you wanted to hear anything like Sadus back in the mid 90s here in Australia you needed to be connected to the metal underground here somehow, which i was not. You needed to go to metal only music stores, of which at the time there were only like 2 or 3 in the whole country and nowhere where I lived. So yes, the initial question where was I living was in that sense valid - I live in a country where metal never had the sort of popularity it experienced in the 80s in US.

well, hot chicks and excellent beaches are as good if I lived there in Australia!

I dig both Vektor albums.

I ordered the most recent Revocation album this morning.

Vektor is hands-down the greatest new wave thrash metal band.

"Chaos of Forms" by Revocation is a masterpiece, but everything that came after that album sounded like shit to my ears. Probably because they started leaning more towards melodic death metal than thrash.

Revocation started good but quickly got very boring for me. Vektor is an overall stronger and more memorable group.

Vektor live was cool. Album's..... I rather listen to second rate bay area thrash worship than that very boring. Revocation too modern for me and I get bored.

I saw something amusing, since Revocation is signed to Metal Blade Records.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/evocation-signs-with-metal-blade/

A band called Evocation is on the same record label as Revocation.

DakotaRogers wrote:

Vektor is hands-down the greatest new wave thrash metal band.

"Chaos of Forms" by Revocation is a masterpiece, but everything that came after that album sounded like shit to my ears. Probably because they started leaning more towards melodic death metal than thrash.

I like Vektor. But as far as the new wave of thrash bands Havok is my favorite.

I've never heard Revocation and from what I've heard from Vektor wasn't too impressive.

Revocation is awesome. Evocation is also awesome.

Since two almost identically named bands (Evocation and Revocation) are on the same label, another strange oddity.

I saw Gorod live last year, and bought their newest CD, A Maze of Recycled Creeds, last year.

Gorod was originally known as Gorgasm, but changed their name to avoid confusion with the American death metal band of the same name.

A Maze of Recycled Creeds was released on Unique Leader Records. Gorgasm (the American death metal band) used to be on Unique Leader Records. Therefore, the band known as Gorgasm and the band formerly known as Gorgasm have both been on Unique Leader Records.