Raven
ExtermiNation
(SPV/Steamhammer)
I’ve always held a special place in my heart for ‘80s metal bands like Raven, who churned out some decent headbangers back in their heyday. Initially, I was glad to hear they had a new album coming out. But sometimes you just have to know when you’re beating a dead horse, and apparently (and unfortunately for us), no one has told Raven yet that that’s exactly what they’re doing at this point.
To say the lyrics on ExtermiNation are generic would be understating it; they’re equivalent to something I would have thought sounded cool had I written them in middle school (“Destroy All Monsters?” I mean, really guys?!). Even the cover artwork looks juvenile, reminiscent of something that came straight from the ‘90s TV show Goosebumps. There are some brief moments of hope, however; “It’s Not What You Got” has potential, but isn’t strong enough to carry the whole album. The rest of the tracks might have an interesting riff here or there, but most just end up falling flat before too long. I actually found myself hoping that no one walked in on me while listening to ExtermiNation out of fear of being embarrassed. If you’ve already read this far, you probably don’t need me to tell you this album won’t make a dent in any charts (that’s oblivious enough), but I can’t even see this appealing to many folks at all on any sort of significant level. With that being said, I think I’ll go turn on one of their earlier albums now to erase the memory of this mess from my mind. (Jesse Striewski)
