Well, here it is, the long awaited debut full-length album of Dutch death metal band Cremation, who have managed to survive the very crowded Dutch death metal scene for almost a decade by releasing several demo tapes and the vinyl maxi “Futile Felicity”. And now, in the year 2002, it is finally time for the splattered birth of “Retaliation”. The album contains nine tracks of brutal death metal in its purest rotting form and kicks off with “Vanished Into Oblivion”, an intense and fast song, followed by several raging tracks like “The Void” and ”Intangible Malignancy”. The album is cut in half by a short melodic quiet track, “Veil Of Secrecies”, and then bursts into another devastating and catchy track, “Futile Existence”, filled with guitar leads.

“Retaliation” finishes with skull-crushing track “Deceptive Felicity”, which is the perfect summary of the whole album: fast and intense, with melodic guitar-leads and deep grunting vocals. Cremation have produced an album that, in my opinion, can easily compete with the Dutch death metal top such as Houwitser, Sinister and God Dethroned. I’ve rated this album half a point less due to the short playing time, but hey, I can remember some albums that were shorter and later on appeared to be classics…