Starspawn

I remember reading an interview with one of the guitar players not too long after this was released and he said something along the lines of "Man, I'm in this metal shit for real, I don't fucking wear nice clothes or have short hair. When I'm at work being a slave to the system all I think about all day is making riffs and playing guitar". While I'm very happy that I'm not that guy, this is exactly the type of guy I want making my death metal. The dedication to riffcraft certainly shines through, and Starspawn is an absolute triumph of all that is awesome about death metal. Last year's Interdimensional Extinction EP was great and showed an enormous amount of potential for the young band, but I had no idea they'd drop something this jaw-droppingly massive.

Blood Incantation are a band that know their shit and have a deep understanding of what makes for good death metal. While they show affinity for tech death, BDM, death/doom and even occasionally subtly hint at melodeath, more than anything this is very much rooted in an OSDM sound. While I could go on for paragraphs about what classic bands influenced what part of their sound, what obscure group rears its head here, what band a riff resembles there, not only would that make me an enormous nerd, but would also be completely superfluous and unnecessary. Blood Incantation doesn't sound like any one OSDM band in particular, instead they take everything that was special about that formative time, take healthy amount of influence from more recent developments, blend it up and somehow find their own identity along the way. The thing that's really important to take into account is that this is very much OSDM in style, but the substance of their sound isn't just a gutless retread.

Songwriting wise, this doesn't really sound like a lot of the classics. Let's take a look at "Vitrification of Blood (Part 1)", their expansive 13 minute opus which bravely sits at the beginning of the album. There's a metric shit-ton of riffs on this song, something that is typical even of their shorter songs. Is it just a particularly tasty riff salad? Sort of, but I think there's a bit more going on. There's fast riffs and slow riffs, there's very immediate visceral ones and more subtle cerebral ones meant to carry the momentum of the song. The flow and the way the riffs are sequenced (not to mention interspersed with atmospheric breaks, psychedelic leads and wailing solos), is done very painstakingly and in a way that kind of seems to convey a narrative. It's sort of like how in any of the three main tracks in Pink Floyd's Animals, even if you ignored the lyrics or even stripped the vocals away completely, the music would still seem to convey a story just by the brilliant non-traditional epic song structures and excellent choice of sequencing.

Colorado really has been on fire this year. We have Blood Incantation and Cobalt making probably my two favourite metal albums of the year, Vermin Womb creating an absolutely devastating slab of unbridled vitriol and Spectral Voice (who feature most of Blood Incantation!) and Primitive Man participating in awesome splits. While Cobalt take in a dark americana atmosphere and a wandering expansiveness inspired by their home state and Vermin Womb and Primitive Man seem like an outlet for blue collar aggression no doubt taken from their experiences working in the state, Blood Incantation doesn't seem like Colorado's spawn - it doesn't even sound of this planet. The riffs are awesome and the biggest part of why this is an instant modern classic, but there's a lot to be said for the atmosphere. It's not a particularly friendly one, and it sounds wholly extraterrestrial and twisted. Blood Incantation's main peer would probably be Zealotry - it's amazing how both bands have taken in the classics, lots of cool obscure shit and twisted them into some bizarre alien entity. From the doomy dirges of "Vitrification In Blood (Part I)", the classic OSDM banger in Part II and the rambunctious melodic-tinged fun of the title track, this has some of the best riffs this way of Dead Congregation.