Malevolent Creation - _Envenomed_
(Pavement Music, 2000)
by: Pedro Azevedo (8 out of 10)
Writing a follow-up to a critically acclaimed album such as 1998's _The Fine Art of Murder_ [CoC #35] is never an easy thing, and _Envenomed_ would inevitably end up being compared to its predecessor. What Malevolent Creation seem to have opted for was not taking many chances: to a considerable extent, _Envenomed_ tends to contain more of the same kind of material found on _The Fine Art of Murder_. That Malevolent Creation have found a formula they wish to hold on to is not very surprising given the quality of _TFAoM_, and may be a reflection of the band having finally reached a line-up they were able to keep for two albums and a few years so far -- whether the fact that not much has changed in their sound since _TFAoM_ would be good or bad would always depend on the quality of _Envenomed_ and whether it would be able to overshadow their previous effort. The answer, from my point of view, is that _Envenomed_ is a mighty album: intense and perhaps even more aggressive than usual whilst still very precise and calculated in cold blood; but it was mostly unable to set aside its rather similar predecessor in my mind. Having said that, I don't think this shorter effort is necessarily inferior to _TFAoM_, which should attest to its quality, but I didn't enjoy it any better than _TFAoM_ or perhaps even the recent _The Only Law Is Survival_ from Hateplow [CoC #49] -- which actually contains three members of Malevolent Creation. A very good record nonetheless, but hardly a breakthrough for the band this time.
(article published 20/11/2000)
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