Seven years on from the bands second album – ‘08s ‘Anatomize’ – Incinerate are back, filling our festering lug’oles with their brutal death metal.
Now, seven years might not be a long time between records…..if you’re fucking Rush, but for a brutal technical death metal band from Minnesota it could be considered to be a bit of an excessive lay off. Will the fans still care and be interested?
Of course, death metal fans are nothing if not loyal so it’s good to hear the band are back delivering the goods albeit without the bands founder and original member, guitarist / singer Scott Ellingboe.
The dextrous musicianship here is quite breath taking, the band produce a savage blend of Cryptopsy / Suffocation esque death metal that is addictive and never boring. More ‘technical’ than ‘br00tal’ with no slammy breakdowns the band really blast along at a frantic pace with lots of intricate time changes and sick drum fills scattered liberally amongst every one of the ten tracks on the record (including a cover of ‘One By One’ originally by Severed Savior). Highlight for me is ‘Fucking The Rotten Nun’ (obviously) with a sample from Se7en preceding the litany of depravity that follows. Luckily you can’t decipher Jesse Watson’s guttural vocal delivery so in a helpful move the band has kindly included the lyrics with the record so you can howl along with him.
This is a belting barrage of an album. Plenty to love for any death metal fan if you like the tech side of things. While never overly technical (like Hate Eternal’s last record was) the band still leave your head spinning from their maelstrom of surgically precise yet complex riffing without degenerating into ‘bore-off fret wankery’.
Well recommended.
(8/10 Mark Eve)
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