After years of having a luke-warm reaction those mighty Floridian (orig. Buffalo) deathsters, I'm finally of the opinion that this album is pure genius. Maybe there wasn't too much new here, or anything more than Slayer squared, but dammit, that's enough for me! Honestly, I love every track on this album now, having gone through this weird Malevolent phase over the last year. An essential (unfortunately out of print as of 2000) release to document the early 90s death metal scene.
10 out of 10

The second half of the early Malevolent monster, Retribution continues the incredible "Slayer on crank" music that Phil Fasciana created. The onslaught is aided by Solstice members Rob Barrett and Alex Marquez (godly guitar and drums, respectively) fleshing out the sound, preparing it for the rantings of Brett Hoffman. Not as fast as they would become, Retribution is still the first peak for this seminal (seminole) band.
10 out of 10

Ah, the infamous Stillborn. Even a totally cool cover couldn't persuade people to look past the tepid vocal performance by the previously unstoppable Brett Hoffman. There are some pretty tasty riffs here highlighted by more bullet train drumming, but Hoffman's standard beltings make Stillborn more of a "normal" death metal album, nothing too far removed from everything else out there. It's not as bad as you might hear that it is, but it's nowhere near the perfection of the first two albums.

I Have to admit that I didn't really pay too much attention to Phil and the boys for the past few releases, but after checking out a few minutes of TFAoM, I couldn't pass on this! Ludicrously insane, thanks to returning skinsman Dave Culross, who left Suffocation to fly in and record all 13 of these tracks in like 3 days. Pretty unbelievable, as there are some serious nuances here that Dave picks up on nicely. Besides Culross's return, the fine art also sees guitarist Rob Barret and Brett Hoffman back in the vocal chair. Call it a Malevolent reunion, but it all seems to work, things speeding along for almost the entire album. One major change though is Phil's addition of keyboards into some of the main tracks. What the hell, they had to slow down at some point, right? Well, don't get too worried, cuz this disc also holds some of the fastest moments yet. Things tend to drag a bit towards the end (hell, the album is almost an hour long!), but for the most part, not too shabby.
8 out of 10

Manifestation

1. In Cold Blood
2. Condemned
3. Nocturnal Overlord
4. Fine Art of Murder
5. Scorn
6. Blood Brothers
7. Impaled Existence (Demo '90)
8. Living in Fear
9. Manic Demise
10. To Die is at Hand
11. Infernal Desire
12. Bone Exposed
13. Alliance or War
14. Mass Graves
15. Joe Black
16. Self Important Freak
17. Multiple Stab Wounds (live)
18. Eve of the Apocalypse (live)
19. Slaughter of Innocence (live)
20. Monster (live)

Billed as a "Best of..." from Malevolent, I can only curse the label politics which kept all but one track from the first two albums off of this release. In reality, how can you have a MC greatest hits album and not have anything off Thou Shalt Kill on there?! I understand that this is a Pavement thing, and I get the idea that the band may have just wanted to fulfill some contractual obligation with this L.P., but to me, it's a good album, but not a best of. I guess part of this is due to the "fast as hell/Jason B." era of malevolent, where things are incredibly speedy, but the monotone death metal vocals just bug the crap out of me. So, while it's not bad, the definite highlights are The Fine Art of Murder tracks and the killer demo version of Impaled Existence. A solid release from a band that has recently returned to form, but of particular interest to those that have wanted to sample both Eternal and In Cold Blood without purchasing those albums, as most of the 20 tracks (16 that I received in my promo) are culled from those two albums. The real version comes with 15 minutes of live footage, but as I can't see it I can't comment on that. Of course, in seeing the 4 tracks I DON'T get, those are the older material that I complained about not getting. Oh well, such is my luck, I still feel that the album focuses on the later material.
7 out of 10