As tempting as it is to start with a 'wowzers, Revenge have gone acoustic!' joke, the fact is that exactly none of the people who have heard of this band would be taken in. Canada's Revenge are about as likely to change styles as the next Burzum is to feature rapping, and whilst I for one would love to hear a Lil Wayne guestspot on Varg's next opus magnus, I know it's not going to happen. Same here; I would love to hear Revenge throw a little something different into the black, brutal pit of miserable raging that their music is, but, again, it's not going to happen. So if you've heard Revenge before, then Scum.Collapse.Eradication is exactly the same as their past albums (despite dropping to a duo with the departure of Angelcorpse's Pete Helmkamp...) and you only need buy it if you're some kind of masochist, or if you know their other material by heart. Which is actually the same thing...

Those new to Revenge will find this quite exciting, on the other hand. Extremely angry black/grind with a punkish edge and rabid, ravenous vocals, this is the sort of music that Rick Santorum hears in his nightmares. Oddly structureless with seemingly random bursts of directionless soloing, the 'music' here is exactly the sort of nihilistic chaos that fans of black metal in general claim to love. Telling the difference between songs like Filth Solution (Intolerance) and Banner Degradation (Exile Or Death) is virtually impossible on initial listens; although with a few you'll learn to hear the nasty atmosphere coiling and rollicking back on itself in different ways. This isn't the sort of music you listen to for the songwriting, it's the sort of music you listen to for a while as an experience - black metal reduced to its most wrathful simplicity as noisy, angry, sounds. Kind of enjoyable in and of itself, especially once you get to the distorted vocals on Scorned Detractor (Trust No One) and its oddly catchy groove, but most definitely not for the faint-hearted.