The popular consensus at the time was that Rebaelliun was just another Krisiun clone, and to an extent that is true. The difference with Krisiun is that Rebaelliun relies heavier on the influence of early Slayer, and their Morbid Angel leanings are only secondary to that foundational aspect. The point is also that Rebaelliun, even this early in their career, knew to how to arrange a song. Certainly, they play at blistering speeds most of the time but the dynamics are actually very clever for a genre as limited as death metal. The leads/solos of Ronaldo Lima were another high mark and selling point for this band. Of the two guitarists, Lima is more technically proficient and melodically gifted compared to the more straightforward approach of Fabiano Penna Correa. The band took the template of early Krisiun and worked their individual strengths around that basic framework. The result is an album that is savagely brutal, dynamic in composition but with an old school charm and warmth that was lost on Krisiun from “Ageless Venomous” onwards.
While Sandro Moreira’s drumming is intensely hammering and mostly unrelenting, the way he incorporates fills, rolls and cymbal crashes is a lot more creative and engaging than anything Moyses Kolesne from Krisiun ever did at that point or later on. In a lot of ways you could see it as thrash metal drumming sped up to the standards of the then-emerging blast death movement. On lead and rhythm guitar is the pair of Ronaldo Lima and Penna Correa, both whose primary source of inspiration lies with Slayer and Morbid Angel. The opening riff to ‘Spawning the Rebellion’ is vintage Slayer worship and the track ‘Hell’s Decree’ channels “Covenant” more than once, to say the least. The leads and solos are mostly of the Hoffman era Deicide variety. Marcello Marzari’s vocals are more barked than grunted, and while his bass playing provides the band with the most of its heaviness, it isn’t exactly special or captivating. The bass playing is just typical doubling of the guitars and not much else otherwise.
Another thing that Rebaelliun understood, and what Krisiun didn’t seem to grasp, is that playing a bit slower, or mixing up faster and slower sections, adds to the depth of the song. Where Krisiun has a very single-minded approach to how they construct and perform their death metal, Rebaelliun had no problems with letting some early thrash architecture slip into their formula. This, of course, is much more beneficial to the band in the long run. Occasionally there are guitar lead trade-offs, but these are hardly as prominent as those in Diabolic’s original three-album run in the early 2000s. The lyrics are far from compelling as they deal with the usual subjects of war, extermination and religious defamation. Not surprising when you consider this band hails from Brazil, who like Poland, are amongst the most religious conservative Catholic countries in the world.
The album consists almost entirely of new and original material written specifically for this session. Outside of opening track ‘At War’ and mid album crusher ‘Spawning the Rebellion’ no demo tracks were refurbished. This is fairly logical considering that their “Promo Tape ‘98” consisted of only those two earlier mentioned tracks. Interesting is also the instrumental track ‘Flagellation of Christ (the Revenge of King Beelzebuth)’ which consists of spooky church organs, chiming funeral bells, sparse percussion and esoteric minimal guitar playing. The limited digipack of this album also contained the “At War” mini-CD, which was a single-CD limited repress of the band’s “Promo Tape ‘98”.
There are no weak moments to speak of on this record, although towards the end the riffing tends to get a bit samey. ‘Killing For the Domain’, ‘Spawning the Rebellion’, ‘Hell’s Decree’ and ‘The Legacy Of Eternal Wrath’ are the strongest tracks of this session. The production work is of the old school variety, meaning that not everything is balanced and equalized to glossy perfection. Moreira’s drums suffer the most from the limited production, having the snares sound like buckets, with indistinct sounding kickdrums that despite their lack of clarity add much to organic feeling of the record. Marzari’s bass guitar is mixed deeply under the meaty guitars and doesn’t get much space in the production other than providing the deeply rumbling undercurrent and thickness.
Like the erupting volcano that made up the album art for this record, Rebaelliun exploded unto the scene with finesse and conviction. In the wake of this record the band would tour Europe extensively, before recording another EP and finally a second album. After the touring campaign for their second album “Annihilation” Rebaelliun would fall apart due to a number of reasons. Years down the line Penna Correa would resurface with the more thrash-oriented The Ordher, Sandro Moreira would enroll in Mental Horror and Marcello Marzari would rejoin Abhorrence on a permanent basis. Little is known of what became of prodigious guitar player Ronaldo Lima, but the rumors persist that he stopped playing altogether after the Rebaelliun adventure ended as the band members returned to Brazil and all went their separate ways at various points.
The detour into Drake’s Colombian youth adds a lot of depth to the character, it plays out almost indentical to the entire pre-credit intro the “The Last Crusade”. Like that scene added depth to the character of Indiana Jones, so does this sequence add depth to the duo of Drake and Sullivan. But not everything is handled quite that well, either by circumstance or by choice. “Drake’s Deception” is beset by troubles from many sides. The setpieces no longer seem to flow organically from the story as was the case with previous two installments. At one point Nathan goes through an insane amount of trouble to rescue Sullivan from the pirate Rameses, but this extended rescue mission adds nothing of note to the central narrative. It exists only to show off a couple of admittedly cool looking and technically impressive setpieces, but nothing more.
As much fun as Chloe was in “Among Thieves” here she’s reduced to nothing more than a wisecracking, domesticated and uninteresting sidekick. Much of her adventurous spirit has been toned down due to the presence of the Cutter character. Many things that made her so loveable in the preceding episode have been either toned down or cut out entirely, for one reason or another. Safe to say, you won’t find yourself jumping on speeding trains to rescue her. Chloe is as interesting as a cardboard box here.
Why sabotage one of gaming’s most celebrated relationships of recent memory? After building the relationship for two games, they throw it away for this unnecessary and insulting conflict? Why? Gamers can handle a mature relationship, thank you. Don’t let the 14 year olds tell you otherwise, Naughty Dog. What exactly is gained here?