_{By Michael Luce}

You can stop looking, this is the best album of 2025.

REVEL is, in a word, incredible. It’s massive; it’s corrosive; it’s all-consuming. On their debut album, local industrial electronic noise-rock trio UltraVatic manage to channel the same level of post-apocalyptic grandeur as Muse and equally intense tension and dread as Pink Floyd – all while delivering a sound like Odonis Odonis’ entire discography shoved in a blender.

The listener gets their first taste of what’s to come with the opener “Wave One,” my personal favorite. A wall of screams breaks down into driving guitars, harsh vocals, and a disgustingly catchy chorus that fills you with the same sense of anxiety as drowning in a Sonic game. You can’t help but internalize the panicked, repeated command to “STAY IN LINE!” throughout the second verse, and just as the tension subsides a bit, the track explodes into harsh glitchy noise, screaming crowds, and emergency broadcast tones. This is not a place for comfort; this is the end.

This album is the sonic equivalent of Freakshow Industries‘ visuals. There’s noise for the sake of noise, and then there’s noise’s cool, calculating cousin, REVEL. The messiness here is all incredibly intentional, and it’s clear a lot of care went into dialing the exact kind of crunch each track should have. The mix and mastering are solid too, though I can’t help but wonder what the group might sound like with a bit more umph from the likes of June Audio‘s Nate Pyfer.

The album also has its cooler, less chaotic moments, such as the morphine-addled dismemberment of “Immolation Circle.” The track feels like being pulled apart piece by piece as a calming wave of drug kicks in and nullifies any resistance. It’s hauntingly beautiful and disturbingly sweet, almost like Kid A meets The Wall. The finale to this track in particular is massive, enveloping the listener in an explosive hug of finality.

What I find most impressive here is how this absolute chaos of voice, guitars, and dying synthesizers is perfectly interwoven with intensely catchy melodies and earwormy hooks that pop out in the most unexpected spaces. REVEL doesn’t just have incredible sound design; the songs are also brilliantly written. “Apollyon” should not be stuck in my head as often as it is, and yet it just always is.

Even more interestingly, I’ve shown this album to a lot of people since it was released in June, and even those who don’t like this kind of music have remarked there’s something different here, something compelling and intriguing. It’s accessible enough to have a touch of appeal shine through for the pop-only crowd, and I think that’s where UltraVatic’s brilliance is most apparent. Several tracks are reminiscent of familiar styles, though they’re distorted and corrupted into horrific mangled facsimiles of something you thought you once knew. If you squint your ears a bit, tracks like “203X,” “Godhome,” and “Sepsis” almost feel like songs you could hear your parents (or even grandparents) enjoying, but they’re not quite right. It’s the version of those songs that would play in a dream or in the backrooms. It’s uncanny and disorienting, and I love it. 

Now, is this enjoyable? Truth be told, for many of you, no. This is absolutely not going to be an enjoyable experience. But if you’re someone who loves their music to bite back, if you’re someone who appreciates aural devastation or sonic texture, and especially if you’re someone who has appreciated any kind of noisy soundscape before (be it dubstep, hyperpop, Japanoise, blackgaze, or anything industrial or experimental), you’ll have a field day with REVEL. This is the perfect album for those of us with the inexplicable itch for being slightly attacked by our music.

That said, for my fellow chaos connoisseurs who want to take it a step further, I’ve heard UltraVatic’s live shows are something that have to be experienced to be believed. As vocalist/guitarist/synth guru Hans Hansen told Voyage Utah earlier this year, “We also have a very loud and very overstimulating live show, intent on making people dance out of fear and desperation.”

While I haven’t had the chance to terror boogie for myself yet, I’m very much looking forward to experiencing that soon. These guys are really onto something, and I can see them becoming a cult-classic act (or more) in the years to come.

So, if you’re ready to embrace the end times with me, follow UltraVatic on Instagram and begin the descent into madness with “Wave One” below!