When we decided to give The Metal Asylum a complete overhaul and to start including album reviews, there was really only one choice as to who that very first review should be for!
First played on the radio show in February 2022, A Beautiful Retribution quickly became a favourite of The Metal Asylum, and featured as our Band Of The Week in March, with three tracks from their debut album “I Am The Poison” being played over the course of the three hours!
The next logical step was to give the whole album a few whizz throughs and to give the guys an honest, open opinion of what we thought.
Two words immediately sprang to mind…..Fucking and Awesome!!
But first, a little history on the band themselves.
A Beautiful Retribution are a five piece metalcore (their words, not mine! I hate the whole “pigeon-holing” of bands!) from Birmingham, UK. Long term friends, they are a group of comrades you might not have expected to band together. Comprising of a dental student, a senior lecturer, a software developer/music producer, an IT projects manager and, as per their Facebook, a “dude who hammers metal really fucking hard” the group formed in a spare bedroom in 2006 (ran until 2008 before starting back up in 2019) and “I Am The Poison” was released on 5th February 2022.
Produced by lead guitarist and vocalist, Steve Riggs, and mixed and mastered by Steve and Marvin Kinkel, the album is 49 minutes and 30 seconds of pure metal mastery. With influences including Machine Head, Lamb Of God, Pantera, Trivium, Killswitch Engage and Periphery along with the likes of Bury Tomorrow, Sylosis and Enterprise Earth, with some power metal thrown into the mix for good measure, I actually find it difficult to class these guys as just “metalcore”.
As much as I don’t like to use the usual cliches, this album really does have it all. Stonking, heavy riffs, galloping drums, killer guitar solos, clean vocals, dirty vocals and distortion, lots of distortion! These guys are thrash metal, death metal, melodic metal, all rolled up in to one stomping mass of HEAVY FUCKING METAL.
Every now and then, a band appears and totally changes the state of play. A Beautiful Retribution are one such band. If you thought you knew metal, think again because these guys have re-written the rule book!
My only gripe with this band is that NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE KNOW OF THEM! If there is a band that deserve to make it big, A Beautiful Retribution are that band. They have a monster sound that deserves to be heard by everyone, so go and grab yourself a copy of this absolutely awesome album and if you don’t agree with me then I will eat my hat (if I had one that is!)
I don’t give marks out of ten for my reviews anymore as I feel the words mean more than the numbers, but if I did “I Am The Poison” would definitely earn about a squillion out of ten!
So, just in case I haven’t reiterated it enough, this album is the bogs dollocks and I urge you all to go out and buy a copy, follow the band on all of their social media profiles and go and support them at a live gig!
Note to the band: when are you coming down to London because we will be there right in the front row!
Track Listing
1. Out Of Time
2. Worlds Apart
3. I Am The Poison
4. The Beautiful Lie
5. An End To The Pain
6. No King Rules Forever
7. Axiom
8. What Doesn’t Kill You
9. Chaos
10. Deceptions
Band Members
Matthew Little – Vocals
Steve Riggs – Lead Guitars and Vocals
Jimm Wilson – Guitar
Darren Rhodes – Bass Guitar
Parth Malde – Drums
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of The Metal Asylum. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.