Denver, Colorado, the ‘Mile High City’ home of the mighty Colorado Avalanche, has just become the home to another band of ‘Psychos’ they can be proud of - Relevent! Yes, I know the spelling is questionable, but this should give you a glimpse into the band psyche straight away, they are a band who do things ‘Their Way’! Members Angel (Vocals), Sever (Lead Guitar), Venom (Rhythm Guitar), Korpse (Bass Guitar), Texxx (Drums) and Skitzo (Percussion) play multi-genre style of Metal that will appeal to a wide range of Metalheads. Hardcore, Black, Death, Thrash, Metalcore, Old-school and loads of styles in between are liberally scattered throughout their debut, self released album Display Your Prey.

Kicking off with Thrashy/Metalcore They is just the job to kick off a mosh pit of manic proportions with Angel’s vocals change from Metalcore screaming to Rock Clean(ish) in a heartbeat, a talent he uses to great effect throughout the album. Tearing through the two part album title tracks, with some well placed dissonant power chords punching you in the head, brings you to Stand Your Ground, an kinda Slipknot / Mudvane inspired track chugging riffed track that has an absofuckinglutely awesome dual guitar solo; all Neo-Classical sweeps and harmonies.

The track Return is and excellent showcase to the versatility of the band. Starting with a bass guitar intro, the track takes you on a close to eight minute rollercoaster ride of Ballad, emotional clean guitaring, Rocking, Arch Enemy / Dark Tranquillity style Melodic Death and brings you back down ever so gently with the clean guitaring, leaving you in a state of contented wonderment; Return is probably my favourite track of the album, often getting the replay button treatment. Album closer What Lies Inside grabs your attention with jarring riffs, screaming / clean vocals and intermittent tempo changes. It also has Angel blasting out an 18 second scream; the man certainly has an incredible set of lungs on him I’ll tell you that. 18 seconds, man I’d go purple after 8!

Though according to the track listing What Lies Inside is the final track, it bleeds into the first of the hidden bonus tracks; a damn fine piece of clean guitar widdly-wankery. Some may say a bit of OTT, look what I can do guitaring but if I could play like that I’d want to have that somewhere on the album too. A 1 minute 30 second gap takes you to the second hidden bonus track; a Metalcore track that should just as well have been another track or maybe even left out as it is nothing really spectacular, a bit of a filler really.

For a debut, self release Display Your Prey shows Relevent have worked hard to create an album that some long established bands would be proud of. Their song-writing is solid, though mostly not anything entirely original but good all the same and their musicianship is tight with some outstanding guitaring, both riffing and soloing. The only dodgy thing that I thought stood out was Texxx’s kick drum patterns that were sometimes a bit ragged when he tried to be too clever. No doubt he will rectify this over time as some of the other intricate and technical kick patterns he nailed brilliantly. The other thing that has me wondering is, WTF does Skitzo the Percussionist do on the album? I managed to find a video of them playing live and I see him head butt a trash can and beat the snot out of a big oil drum, it may add to the aggressiveness of the live act but does’t seem to contribute much to the overall sound. Like Slipknot’s # 3 Chris Fehn and #6 Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan I’ve never actually figured out what they bring to the table. Maybe I’ll get it if I ever get to see either band live.

Reading Relevent’s bio on their Website you can tell they have a hunger for bigger things. If they build on what they have created with Display Your Prey, I think it won’t take long before a few record label comes a’sniffing. As long as they take care on deciding who to go with and don’t just go for whoever is dangling the shiniest deal, I expect to see them hitting the world stage in the near future. As an opening support act initially – Hey, overnight stardom takes time, but their determination will soon have them playing better support slots, eventually getting to headline. I will definitely be looking out for their future creations and hope to catch their live act when the eventually hit the UK. You can listen to a few tracks from Display Your Prey at their My Space Site including the awesome Return.