Hearing Aide: Incantation ‘Profane Nexus’

Death metal has many faces, much like the seven headed beast that rises from the sea! It can have the speed and ferocious nature of a great white shark, thrashing while tearing the flesh apart without mercy! Or the infernal beast can take a sickening slow approach. Slowly filling your body and soul with dread as you gasp for air! Yes, the genre has taken many shapes and forms. One of the most recent incarnations, has risen from the depths of the nine circles once again. This demonic beast is known to those as Incantation from Jonestown, Pennsylvania. They have unleashed the most disgusting of all unholy sounds with their latest release Profane Nexus (released via Relapse Records). Let us delve into the hellish world of death metal, but with severe caution in this album review.

Incantation 'Profane NexusProfane Nexus is the follow up from 2014’s Dirges of Elysium ( released via Listenable Records). With this latest release mixed and mastered by Dan Swano at Unisound  Studios, most known for helping the Swedish death metal scene with such groups like Entombed,  you can bet already the album will have that filthy muddied sound we love to drown ourselves in. The album starts with the blistering guitar works from McEntee and Lombardozzi on the opening track “Muse.” With the familiar down tuned style of the band, it contains both groove orientated soundscape combined with clearly mastered technical skills of both guitar players. You can feel the riffs gorge on your remnants with each passing second!
If you need something for those blasphemy outings, “The Horns of Gefrin” shall be your unholy hymn of choice for you then! Severn (drums) will have you begging for the barrage of intense and unforgiving dynamic display he is showcasing in his drumming to stop before your skull cracks open! He will bash your head in with a smile on his face. Incantation is most known for their more sludge driven type of death metal much like Autopsy and Disma. The track “Incorporeal Despair” brings that sudden sensation of dread and suffocation to the album. McEntee’s vocal approach will make you feel as though he is speaking from the deepest parts of the abyss. Dragging through the river of Styx you shall find Sherwood as your ferryman as he plays  the most blood curdling  bass riffs, cracking your soul in half!
Even throughout the many band changes in regards to  live performance members, the name Incantation shall reign forever in the death metal world from the past, present, and the future! I give this album an 8/10. Check out the band’s site to order, and sample the album, Relapse Records online store,  and of course check out your local record store to see if they can supply you with this perfect dose of death.  Remember boys and girls, hail the goat!
Key Tracks: The Horns of Gefrin, Incorporeal Despair, Ancients Arise

Comments are closed.