Since the very first day I stepped into heavy metal’s looming halls, I have been an obsessive participant in most every facet of the genre. The experience was fairly overwhelming at first, owed in part to the sheer amount of catching up that seemed necessary, but also because I was pretty young and always broke. Of course, this is far from a rare origin story, as I’m sure there are plenty of others out there who equally had little choice but to hold the “shoot for quality, not quantity” mantra close to their heart. Basically, since the internet was barely even a word at that point, being a tireless apprentice meant you had to set a fairly specific set of standards and practices that would stretch your resources in a way that allowed for as wide and deep a dip as possible.
For many of us beginners, the arrival of thrash marked a particularly important point on the timeline, because straight-up heavy metal—what we lovingly refer to as trad metal nowadays—felt as if it belonged to our forebears, even if we spent countless hours researching and learning about the roots. Thrash, on the other hand, was FRESH, thrilling and even more ferocious, and a great many of us rode into it from trad and speed metal waves like it was our flippin’ job.
Same rules applied for the imminent arrival of death metal, which made it clear that a great many of us had a gluttonous appetite for the extreme—a craving that labels such as Peaceville, Earache, Nuclear Blast, Relapse, R/C, et al. were all too willing to slake.
It was an ENDLESS barrage back then, though, especially if you were lucky enough to have metal-friendly record stores within serviceable reach, which I did. Consequently, if you wanted to stay ahead of the curve and didn’t have money falling out of your ass, you needed to tag-team releases with your equally deranged friends, and you certainly did yourself a huge favor by securing some suitably crude silk road / tape trade network to supplement your inconquerable thirst.
Maybe you can guess where this is going?
Even with all these methods of canvassing at my disposal, New Jersey’s Revenant and their lone full-length Prophecies of a Dying World managed to dodge my tractor beam when it first hit our orbit. This wasn’t a case of not having access to the underground, either, as I counted gems such as Blood’s Impulse to Destroy (1989) and DVC’s Descendant Upheaval (1989) as early boons, so I mostly blame… not being pulled in by the album’s artwork?
Let me make this clear before moving forward: I don’t mind the cover for Prophecies of a Dying World, but I do think it benefits from all the years between then and now to help add to the uniqueness of the album’s overall narrative. Back then, though, it conjured images of pure thrash (think Gammacide’s Victims of Science), and while there were still some bands finding ways to make that particular branch interesting in 1991, the reaper was definitely whispering in thrash’s ear if you were there from its inception and watched, say, the following evolutions:
» Bonded By Blood to Impact is Imminent
» Power and Pain to Insult to Injury
» Master of Puppets to Metallica
» Face Fate to Chopping Block Blues
» The Legacy to Practice What You Preach
» The Ultra-Violence to Act III (great album)
Not really here to talk shit on the softening of thrash, but if you first jumped in because of the off-shoot’s emphasis on pushing extremes, you were likely equally ready for death metal’s coup on heavy metal in the late ‘80s / early ‘90s.
So, yes, being lean on funds and not having the ultimate convenience of the internet at our disposal for samplage, it’s not terribly surprising to discover that some of us might have skipped past Prophecies in 1991 because of the album artwork, especially when stacked next to brutal eye candy such as this that very same year:
HOW COULD YOU NOT CHOOSE TO THROW WHAT LITTLE MONEY YOU HAD AT THAT QUILT OF SAVAGERY.
Revenant themselves were apparently none too pleased with the art choice as well. Per a notably in-depth (and excellent) interview with vocalist / guitarist Hank Veggian a few years ago with Hessian Firm, the band hoped to commission the gent responsible for the cover of Ripping Corpse’s Dreaming with the Dead (Rob Leelock), but he wasn’t all that keen on becoming ‘the metal cover artist’, so he said no. Following this, the backup artist’s submission ended up being “too cartoony,” so Nuclear Blast stepped in and… picked a photo from the public domain. Woof. Basically that era’s version of opting for AI.
Okay, so the album cover didn’t exactly demand metal LP, CD and cassette bin excavators to stop, drop and roll, but why didn’t a lunkhead like yours truly get subjected to Revenant from other avenues? Did I hear “Degeneration” on the Nuclear Blast Death… is Just the Beginning comp back in 1990? Did I even buy comps? Oddly enough, I did not, because I wanted to save my cash for proper albums, which seems completely insane to me today. Such is life.
Perhaps more importantly, though: How the hell did Revenant NOT manage to play this early fest fully stacked with friends of the band and attended by yours truly?
Revenant clearly would have been a perfect fit, and the timing couldn’t have been better from a “band about to drop a new crusher” perspective. Only Autopsy, Cannibal Corpse, Repulsion and Disharmonic Orchestra had full-lengths available at that point, and four other bands—Baphomet, Immolation, Suffocation and Deceased—were just months away from delivering their debut long players. Perfect timing for a first-time exposure to songs from Prophecies, but unbeknownst to me, Revenant had just played an equally early (September 1990) Day of Death fest in Milwaukee, so maybe they were still recovering a month later. Or, you know, life just got in the way.
FURTHERMORE… Did Headgiver’s Ball actually ever play the following video for the very excellent “The Unearthly (A Quest)?” If they did, it was probably sandwiched between 50 miles of “Rusty Cage” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” videos, and it probably only happened once. So, yeah, chances are pretty high you were already long done with Headgiver’s Ball by 1991, or you were on the can when the vid finally exploded from TV sets.
Stylistically, you can certainly hear a number of apt influences on the overall Revenant footprint inside “The Unearthly,” especially splashes of very early Morbid Angel (“Chapel of Ghouls”), which of course worked seamlessly with the thrashing fury of primeval albums such as Pleasure to Kill and Hell Awaits. The band’s penchant for cutting sharp turns also testified to the influence of some of the more adventurous bands of the time, like the more technical brutality of the first (and, um, only, as far as I’m concerned) Atrocity leveler, 1990’s Hallucinations. Suffice to say, if I had come across a song like “The Unearthly” back in 1991, I would’ve jumped all over Prophecies of a Dying World. Despite my efforts to troll as much of the waters extreme metal had to offer, however, I missed out, and by the time I finally did catch a whiff, it was already too late, as physical copies became increasingly rare as the years melted away.
Y2K SAVES THE DAY!
Do you figure there was moment in our evolution as humans where a solitary caveman stood up amongst his peers and said something to the effect of, “Look, Glug love fire. Glug use fire every day. But Glug also think fire dangerous. Glug worry about fire. Glug wish fire users better,” which additionally prompted the very first series of deep eye-rolls on humankind’s long and thorny timeline.
I get it, Glug, and I feel the same way about our single greatest invention since fire: the internet. I use it every day, I can’t imagine living without it, and I’m certainly no stranger to complaining about how this miraculous tool has been warped in the hands of humans to augment many of the miseries of our planet in the modern age. However, like fire, the benefits continue to largely outweigh the harms, and obviously apropos to this venture, I might never have realized the error of my ways with regard to Revenant without the internet finally putting a halt to my lameness.
Just think how much we benefited from the massive surge of shared information in the late ‘90s / early ‘00s, especially we, the music freaks. Now, I was never a Napster guy, and I’ve never actually used a torrent site, but I did frequent a few of the more entertaining and judicious blogs that underscored releases that were either impossible to find or far enough underground that even worms feared to tread, and that “impossible to find” element certainly rang true for Revenant circa 2005ish. I’m not sure which blog was responsible for re-shining a light on Prophecies—Cosmic Hearse, Illogical Contraption, or some kindred spirit to those worthies—but it did the job of lighting the fuse, and I immediately added the record to the ever-growing “to look for” list that had become a permanent denizen of my back pocket after some horrid 128k youtube rip of Prophecies shot across my brainpan.
The good news, Cosmic Key Creations finally did a very limited run of reissued LPs in 2017, but if you missed that—and I did (starting to wonder if there’s a sign where my brain should be that reads “room for rent?”)—you remain pretty much bonked. A quick peek at Discogs dampens the spirits even lower: ZERO copies available stateside, with CD versions overseas hitting an average of 150€, and precisely one LP running an absurd 257€. That is GRIM, my friends.
HEY, MAN, IS THAT DEATH THRASH? WELL TURN IT UP, MAN!
So, what exactly does Prophecies of a Dying World bring to the extreme metal table that we haven’t already heard a thousand times since its release three and half decades ago? (He asked confidently after finally getting to the true point 1500 words later.)
Well, that’s a bit of a tangled question. If you count yourself a fairly knowledgeable rot-head and have somehow managed to avoid the record, you’ll probably walk into the fracas and quickly surmise: “Oh! This is classic death / thrash!”
NAILED IT, homeslice. Nailed it. Line Prophecies up alongside all your other fave death / thrash classics from the ‘80s and ‘90s and witness how well they all play together. And since we’re already diving as deep as any sensible lifeguard would allow, permit me to submit a list of 25 OTHER essential death / thrash classics from the late ’80s and ’90s (largely culled from a stack I shared earlier this month behind closed doors with the rest of the LR crew) to add to the fun:
- Master – Unreleased 1985 Album [1985 / 2003]
- Kreator – Pleasure to Kill [1986]
- Messiah – Hymn to Abramelin [1986]
- Infernal Majesty – None Shall Defy [1987]
- Necrodeath – Into the Macabre [1987]
- Incubus – Serpent Temptation [1988]
- Pestilence – Malleus Maleficarum [1988]
- Rigor Mortis – Rigor Mortis [1988]
- Sadus – Illusions [1988]
- Sepultura – Beneath the Remains [1989] (The crowned king, in my opinion)
- Agressor – Neverending Destiny [1990]
- Atheist – Piece of Time [1990]
- Hellwitch – Syzygial Miscreancy [1990]
- Merciless – The Awakening [1990]
- Morbid Saint – Spectrum of Death [1990]
- Cancer – Death Shall Rise [1991]
- Massacra – Enjoy the Violence [1991]
- Protector – A Shedding of Skin [1991]
- Ripping Corpse – Dreaming with the Dead [1991]
- Demolition Hammer – Epidemic of Violence [1992]
- Epidemic – Decameron [1992]
- Solstice – Solstice [1992]
- Obliveon – Nemesis [1993]
- Poison – Into the Abyss [1993]
- Deceased – Fearless Undead Machines [1997]
See how nicely Prophecies snuggles its way into the merrymaking?
At the time of its release, the album probably walked hand-in-hand best with Ripping Corpse’s phenomenal heated shot Dreaming with the Dead, seeing as how both bands hailed from Jersey and pushed into thrashy death metal with a less glottal vocal style. They are rather different beasts, though, with Dreaming catching more of a punkish sweet-spot that careened like a burning roller coaster, whereas Prophecies found a notably interesting way to balance raw fury with a level of progressive refinement few others inside the death / thrash offshoot cared to underscore. Not quite to Beneath the Remains levels, mind you, as BtR opted to weave Ride the Lightning-levels of sophistication into its perhaps surprising tunefulness, but certainly a deliberate effort to include lots of complex layering and unexpected twists. Revenant members were quite interested in progressive rock at the time (again, dip back into that Hessian Firm interview), and that influence bleeds from the corners once you really start paying attention in a good set of headphones. No, there’s no blatant nods to Pink Floyd or Rush, or even slightly lesser known acts such as Gentle Giant or Wishbone Ash, but listen to a song like “Valedictions” and appreciate its layered intricacies and that absolutely rocking solo that fires off in its back half.
Revenant also counted one of the more underrated drummers of the early death metal scene in their ranks. Perhaps that didn’t exactly set them apart, as there were some true wallopers back in the early ‘90s, but it certainly should have included the name William Corcoran in conversations that included players such as Igor Cavalera, Steve Flynn (Atheist), Brandon Thomas (Ripping Corpse) and the insanely elusive Marco Foddis (Pestilence). Corcoran was apparently obsessed with Neil Peart, and he channeled his idol’s inventiveness and absolutely destroyed the kit up and down Prophecies, relentlessly thumping the listener with splashy, HARD-HITTING eruptions on full display right from the jump with the opening “Prophecy of a Dying World.”
Sadly, the world lost Will Corcoran in January of 2022—an exceedingly unfortunate event that shook family, friends and fans alike. His was a looming presence, both literally (BIG dude) and in the way his playing style drove the overall machine like a thundering tank. Revenant has no designs to reform at any point moving forward, and I can’t help but wonder if Corcoran’s absence plays a significant role in that decision.

R.I.P. Will Corcoran
Something that absolutely did set Revenant apart from most of their peers—and another element that perhaps serves them even more today compared to 30+ years ago—is the way the band approached the overall theme of the record, which is essentially a portent to the end of days through a science fiction / fantasy lens. Yes, still brutal, as was necessary, and obviously loads of bands that were interested in pushing extremes in the early ‘90s were heavily influenced by horror and science fiction, but Revenant’s lyrics offered a next level of refinement that synched wonderfully with the songwriting’s clever design. And while so many of us were young and in love with the absurdly barbaric lyrics to songs like “Vomit the Soul” and “Ridden with Disease,” Revenant found a refreshing way to weave brutality around velocity that was miles away from Cannibal Corpse, Autopsy, et al. Veggian mentions the influence of Michael Moorcock in the Hessian interview, and that sort of otherworldly Melnibonéan devotion to chaos and omnipotence (which, incidentally, also reminds me of a guy like Steven Erikson today) is tattooed up and down Prophecies’ sleeves. And fusing that to themes centered around the Earth’s untimely demise and the destruction of humankind not only served to reflect the upswing in conservation efforts the world was experiencing in the early ‘90s, it now sets the record apart from the hordes of other entries that focused on a much more cartoonish approach to savagery.
My reign to survive eternity
An emperor of chaos a ghost of insanity
Enthroned, I am now king
Dominating prehistory
A forgotten lord of blasphemy
But soon, the time will come
When I wake in a frenzy
To slaughter the invaders
Known to me as man
So here’s the 10¢ question: Why spend so much time digging up and into a record that, while certainly worthy of an exhaustive (and perhaps exhausting) ode, continues to be nearly impossible to find in any physical form OR available to (legally) stream anywhere other than Spotify? Well, the answer is actually pretty simple: Because it fucking rips. BOOM. Thanks for burning all that time reading the unlimited jibber-jabber ahead of this lightning revelation.
Actually, two other points also spring to mind. First: Preserving and continuing to circulate a record like this is important because it represents yet another vital piece of steel in the bridge between thrash and the early death metal scene. Leave no soldier behind!
Second: All signs point to a long-anticipated end to the dearth of physical products, as Hank Veggian has finally secured most all of the master tapes spanning Revenant’s career, obviously including Prophecies of a Dying World, and he has promised a proper reworking of the overall mix that better matches an old demo cassette version he still has in his possession.

From the Revenant Facebook page
Here’s the thing. If you go back and mine the archives for interviews with various Revenant band members over the years, you will quickly discover a… significant level of frustration attached to the production behind the Nuclear Blast version of Prophecies. This was, of course, nothing new for metal in its earliest stages. If you were part of a new wave of metal back then, particularly of the more extreme variety, you often had no choice but to subject your creative output to those who had no fucking clue how to manage heaviness and brutality.
Bill Klatt was largely responsible for producing / engineering Prophecies, and while he wasn’t a total stranger to metal (he engineered releases from Hades and Overlorde prior to this), he certainly put a curious stamp on Prophecies AND Ripping Corpse’s Dreaming with the Dead. “Curious stamp” meaning… thin, not heavy enough, and weirdly muddled. In a curious way, though, these sorts of missteps end up adding a unique charm to yesteryear’s releases when consumed in the modern age. But no, bands today don’t exactly line up to sound like this record or any number of other stumbles that range from Queensrÿche’s The Warning to Suffocation’s Breeding the Spawn.
Anywho, with the master tapes now secured, a proper reissue of Prophecies of a Dying World is imminent. Following that, the book of Revenant will finally be closed. Period. The remaining members have no interest in milking the material, and no Revenant reformations will ever be considered. According to Hank, the reissue will be a CD version (no word on LPs), and it will include one never before released bonus track (“A New Paganism”), possibly the instrumental demo cassette tracks from the original lineup (with John McEntee of Incantation!), PLUS one other surprise that will remain under wraps until further notice. This news is obviously muy excelente, and I’m sure I’m far from the only human who’s very much looking forward to rectifying a 30+ year oversight of not owning Prophecies in some physical form. Hell, even those who were a lot smarter than me back then will likely be notably curious to hear a fully remastered version that underscores more layering and heaviness.
Will we see the finished product in the next few months? Probably not. At some point in 2025? Who knows. Hell, I’m not even sure if a proper record label is involved at this point. For sure, Xtreem Music could be a candidate, considering what a wonderful job they did on the Revenant demo and EP compilation The Burning Ground back in 2005 (also hard to find these days). Whatever avenue the band ends up venturing down, and no matter how much longer it might take, the effort will surely be worth it. And I, for one, DO NOT PLAN ON MISSING OUT AGAIN. Unless, you know… Asteroid 2024 YR4 finds some way to accelerate tremendously and land on our heads before the reissue manages to hit. Hey, given our planet’s current trajectory, the title Prophecies of a Dying World seems more and more appropriate with each passing year, no? Maybe Hank & crew should change the name of the band to RELEVANT before finally closing this chapter.
Thanks Captain
Awesome work!