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Burp on a beat. Burp on a beat. Burp on a beat. How anyone older than 10 can find anything interesting in "burp vocals" is beyond me. I'm not talking about your average DM growl, but the "I'm puking my breakfast" variety. Anyway, I had to resist the urge to hit the Stop button when I heard the vocals on this one, and it's a good thing I did not, for the music more than makes up for the annoying vocals. "Remnants Revived" is a reissue of Visceral Bleeding's first album, 2002's "Remnants Deprived". Remastered with added bonus tracks (including Dismember and Cannibal Corpse covers) and CD-ROM enhanced tracks containing one studio clip and three live clips, "Remnants Revived" is presented in a very nice digipak (and I'm not a fan of digipaks to begin with.) I haven't heard the original version of the album so I can't comment on the sound improvements.

Visceral Bleeding present here an unrelented assault of technical, brutal Death Metal that exhibits influences from such bands as Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation. While the original tracks are plagued with the aforementioned vocals, the vocal style changes into a more standard (i.e. less burp-ish) DM growl for the covers which fit surprisingly well with the rest of the album. How often have bonus tracks ruined the "atmosphere" of an album? It's not the case here, as the twelve audio tracks flow together almost flawlessly. While I can't compare the sound quality to the first release, the remastering job resulted in a very crisp, clear sound that makes this even more enjoyable. While on the first couple of listens I wasn't too impressed, the more I listened to it the more I discovered the intricacies of the axe work and some rather diverse drumming (as opposed to the blast beats obsession of some brutal death bands.) If it weren't for the vocals, this would be an almost perfect release.

The remastered tracks and the extras probably make it worth purchasing for those who already have the first version of the album. If you can get past the vocal style (or if you actually like that style), this is one damn fine death metal album. Recommended.