Death metal may be most associated with Florida, or perhaps more correctly associated with Europe, but as luck would have it, one of the most enduring facets of the American death metal scene comes from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Incantation, led by vocalist / guitarist / founding member John McEntee, gave rise to what some would call “cavernous death metal,” employing a mixture of death and doom metal for just the right amount of grime and gloominess.
Incantation are old-school as death metal gets, and for their tenth album Sect of Vile Divinities, they haven’t eased up any. The disc is as unforgiving as they come, pulling on the reins of the gruesome subgenre and reminding the diehards what brought the movement to excellence in the first place. It is a statement piece for brutality, an advertisement for musical brutality, and on either of those points, it succeeds handily.
“Ritual Impurity (Seven of the Sky is One)” starts off with some grimy guitar work and fast pacing. The breakdown has a great feel to it, with a healthy dash of pinch harmonics and low riffage. Things start low and slow on “Propitiation,” with a doomy first passage. A tapping solo serves as a bridge between the halves of this song, before persistent double kicks propel things along for the rest, save for another crushingly slow section around three minutes in. “Entrails of the Hag Queen” picks up the pace with a stop-start first segment, and some of the most brutal riffage thus far. After an otherworldly intro, “Guardians from the Primeval” gets into old school death metal territory, bringing the speed and the viciousness in spades.
“Black Fathom’s Fire” has some pounding drums to start, before descending into complete devastation. This might be my favorite track on the album, especially when things get sludgy underneath a soaring guitar solo. “Ingis Fatuus” is the doomiest and gloomiest of the bunch, opting for a methodical approach, a dissection versus a disemboweling, if you will. If that was the slowest, the following “Chant of Formless Dread” is the fastest, most breakneck track, a jarring change of tempo and pace with a winding main riff that I can picture loads of guitarists trying to recreate after hearing it. The ending section has a bunch of odd harmonics that add a bit of insanity and demention (yes, that’s a word) to send the track packing. “Shadow-blade Masters of Tempest” balances the fast and the slow aspects of death metal, with perhaps the best guitar work of anything on the album.
“Scribes of the Stygian” has a slow and unnerving opening guitar lick. It’s also worth pointing out that the key has changed to E, where everything else has been in C up to this point. Even as things creep out of doom territory, the pace isn’t exactly breakneck, letting this low and slow doom play out to its fullest. If you’re picking a random track from the album to listen to on your first listen, this one will catch you off-guard, and while it doesn’t really reflect what the rest of the album sounds like, it’s a fine track, and it takes risks that I can’t say weren’t worth it. “Unborn Ambrosia” is a chaotic and dangerous affair, a portent of sludgy, cavernous metal playing out in six minutes. “Fury’s Manifesto” is an unrelenting track, with palm-muted riffing and frantic drumming. The closing track “Siege Hive,” a title which I can’t help but think is a shot at their Nazi sympathizing ex-vocalist, is a rhythm player’s nightmare, with loads of alternate picking and a fast pace throughout.
With Sect of Vile Divinities, Incantation are putting on a lecture on true death metal excellence. They did not exclusively write the book on the genre, but their influence is felt all through the genre, and this album serves as a reminder that they can craft a stellar album after all this time. In a scene played out and easy to poke fun at, Incantation use this record as a reminder of just how good death metal can be.
Sect of Vile Divinities is available now via Relapse Records.
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