As far as the sound of everything on the record, it sounds almost exactly like their previous album, Everything Remains…. Not necessarily a bad thing, but don’t expect the instruments to sound any different than Everything Remains…. Although  a slight difference that Eluveitie die hards would notice is that this album has  more bass than Everything Remains… As well as that, the majority of the music sounds just like Everything Remains… Here’s why I don’t consider this a bad thing: it’s perfectly fine if a band makes two albums in a row that have the same sound as long as the third album sounds different. There is such a thing as too much change because it kind of makes it hard to keep up with. I actually like it when bands release two albums in a row that have the same basic sound…but only if the sound is amazing.

And luckily, the sound is amazing! The musicians seem to have improved their instrumental and technical skills to make the music sound more complex. That’s the biggest twist this album has that sets it apart from all the previous ones; this album is one of their more technical releases. And yes, I know that there are other songs from previous albums that are very fast and very technical; but as an album in its whole, Helvetios seems more complex, especially in the folk instruments. That’s another thing I forgot to mention! The folk instruments aren’t in the background anymore!! Instead, they’re either right beside the guitars or in the very front of the line next to the vocalist. And speaking of the vocals, Chrigel Glanzmann’s vocals have improved dramatically (and I thought he had reached perfection in Everything Remains…).

Those that own and enjoyed Everything Remains will recall, “Quoth the Raven”, where the female violinist Meri Tadic sang and even let out an ear-splitting scream? Well guess what, apparently the band liked that and decided to put her singing in most of the songs on Helvetios. If you want a text description of what her screams sound like, they sound a hell of a lot like Lacey from Flyleaf (whose screams are phenomenal). As far as individual songs go the title track and “Luxtos” are personal favorites, but all of the songs are amazing and I recommend fans of folk metal and the band check it out for themselves.

The new Revocation EP sounds enough like Chaos of Forms to be acceptably considered a continuation of the album, but it shouldn’t be ignored that there are, in fact, some stylistic changes in their music that have taken place before us. After releasing a straight-up technical thrash/death album in 2009 under the title Existence is Futile, Revocation decided to embark on a much more experimental and diverse direction. This gave birth to the critically-acclaimed release Chaos of Forms, which leans much more in the realms of thrash metal than ever before as well as implementing lots of bluesy elements and classic rock sounds (primarily in the solos and singing).

That was kind of one of the BIG changes that took place in Chaos of Forms; the sharp increase in the amount of clean singing (which was fucking electrifying, I LOVED it). In Teratogenesis, the amount of singing is brought back down to a low level, putting the screaming and yelling back up front where they were in Existence is Futile. After listening to the new EP about a dozen times in a row, it became obvious to me that Revocation had decided to take a lot of the death metal out of their sound, leaving a much more chaotic thrash metal beast. Although the band pulled it off perfectly in almost all aspects, I still think that the sound that they had on Existence is Futile is much more enjoyable and re-playable.

But then again, I loved the different elements that they added in on Chaos of Forms. So if they could take that album and put back a lot of the death metal that was there before, I think that we’d be in for something possibly worthy perfect album. But that’s not what Teratogenesis brings to the table. Think of this EP as a piece of technical thrash with extremely harsh vocals (sort of like a really technical old-school Kreator). This is the part where my rating of the album is mainly based on my musical tastes and preferences than the actual quality of the music itself. Because Revocation have made their transition in style EXTREMELY smooth, leaving next to no rough-spots. They’ve shown their ability to play a more different style of music than on previous albums, but still be completely creative and innovative like they’ve been playing that kind of music their whole lives. The style of the guitar solos have evolved with the rest of the sound in order to avoid sounding out-of-place and weird, the vocals are primarily screams and yells. The only time you hear growls is when they’re being played along with screams.

With all that said, don’t expect to be disappointed in any way, shape, or form by this record. It’s just that I’m not a big fan of the direction that Revocation has gone on this EP, I liked the much heavier and groovy sound MUCH better than this. This means that I should mention the third big reason why a band could choose to release an EP: experimentation. I’m thinking that Revocation wrote this EP for the same reason that Arsis wrote A Diamond for Disease in 2005; simply for experimentation and to get public and critical feedback. I don’t know for sure, but that’s my best guess. There’s no excuse for not having this album in your collection, it’s free for heaven’s sake!