Do you need some more tech-death with fretless bass in your life? Because that’s just what Ancestors Revenge are about, with, I guess, the added blackened adjective to it, given the black metal elements in their music. Blackened tech-death, now we’re talking!

The Archaic Return, the band’s debut album, is long enough to satisfy your hunger and varied enough to keep you interested from start to finish. The drums are absolutely relentless, greatly supporting the riffs and song structure. That drummer is definitely one of the best I’ve got to see recently, he is truly impressive to behold. On the melodic side, both guitars give us speeding riffs and some tremolo picking too, and even a few guitar solos here and there. As for the bass, a wide range of techniques are used on a fretless bass, giving us a really particular sound that unfortunately doesn’t show enough on record. Slapping and tapping are no problem to the experienced bassist, and even though he can be clearly heard in a few songs, like in The Ghost Galleon, he’s too much buried to my liking.

In conclusion, The Archaic Return is a great debut album for fans of fast and technical black and death metal, and is available for pay-what-you-want on their bandcamp page, so no need to hesitate!