REVERED AND REVILED ABOVE ALL OTHERS - Futile/Servile (Review)

Written by: The Administrator

I've talked a lot about Revered and Reviled Above All Others  (henceforth RRAAO) over the years. And yes, I fully intended to publish this review upon the release of their latest, 2025's Futile/Servile. However. I am terrible at finishing projects and thus sat on an almost-but-not-quite draft for, uhhhh, 8 months? Please accept my apologies. I will not learn and it will happen again. In any case, I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad to be talking about RRAAO once more.

Let's cut to the punch. As of November 7th of last year, ​RRAAO are back with a verifiable vengeance. After a great many listens, Futile/Servile still vibrates me to my very core. Every time, it hits like a mile-long freight train, each car filled to the brim with overwatered concrete. I guarantee that never before have you been piledriven by music so relentlessly sloshy. Their sound is uniquely heavy and damp and suffocating. Listening to an RRAAO album is like being digested in the confines of some giant plodding amphibian. It's a pretty singular aesthetic and physical experience, and one that no other band, to my knowledge, has been able to replicate. Which kind of stands to reason, given the unique genre tag.

---

For the uninitiated and/or unfamiliar, RRAAO's patented "doomviolence" delivers the weight of the world with the kind of deliberate brevity typically reserved for powerviolence or grindcore.  Songs are succinct and powerful, preferring to exist as a single knockout blow. And then another blow, and another, until the album is complete. Clips of news reports and interviews candidly discussing police brutality, make frequent appearances. Each song typically represents a single idea, and said idea is delivered with utmost violence. Case in point: the longest track here is the inflammatory opener "Buried Evidence" (reviewed here!) It is over in a fairly swift 2:34. The shortest track, "Proud of What," which buries Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A" in a shroud of staticky distortion until it sounds like an unearthed analog horror clip, manages to very effectively introduce the premise and nail the execution in a mere 1:22. 

Instrumentally, RRAAO is as thick as music can reasonably be. Any thicker and we start entering the realm of literal physicality. Check out the sheer weight of a track like the succinct-but-mighty "Blue Lies Matter"--the first clanging second alone could sum up the project as a whole. Utterly bituminous stuff, especially when contrasted with the clarity of the stark spoken word samples. There are even moments that feel drone-adjacent, albeit condensed into an impossibly short timespan. Take the midpoint of "Forced Responders," which, despite only lasting like 20 seconds, somehow feels like a slow burn frozen in time.​

And the bellowing vocals! We must discuss the vocals, which are less delivered, more "hurled." Or, at times, "violently swallowed." "Casualty of Non-Lethal Munition," for example, displays a vocal styling that is almost implosive. If I were in charge of designating the voice of a eldritch god, this is it. It sounds like the whirlpool roar of Charybdis, assuming Charybdis somehow spawned directly underneath a tarpit.
​
Thematically, the ACAB ethos is outspoken, leaving no room for ambiguity on the band's stance (anti) when it comes to the brutality and oppression the police state inherently creates and upholds. Literally ever single track title provides concise and biting commentary, and that's before you get into the content of the lyrics and ample vocal samples. And, like unto every RRAAO project to date, Futile/Servile oozes with emotive weight. Without the sheer pressure of the rage that RRAAO bring to proceedings, the mighty instrumentation wouldn't hit nearly as hard. The encapsulation of fury and fear is so intensely relatable, and I'll always appreciate the duo for facilitating a little catharsis. 

Futile/Servile hits and often exceeds the established RRAAO mark, with most songs here arguably upping the ante in terms punchy songcraft. I'm a particular fan of the three track run containing "Blue Lies Matter, Civilian Drone Strike," and "Casualty of Non-Lethal Munition." I also very much enjoy the driving drums on "Futile/Servile,"--this track might just represent the band's most pointed percussion to date, particularly when playing off that churning riff. 

​Not much else to say. Excellent stuff as always. The legends of doomviolence maintain their spot at the top. If you have previously enjoyed what RRAAO are doing in the world of extreme music, you are going to like this release. Check it out here (assuming, of course, you didn't already do so 8 months ago!)

Revered and Reviled Above All Others - Futile/Servile was released Nov. 7th, 2025. 

---

Revered and Reviled Above All Others can be found at Bandcamp