Sect of Vile Divinities

Death metal titans Incantation returned with their twelfth full length record back in 2020.

Requiring no introduction, the death metal veterans launch us into a swirling murk of cavernous riffs, punctually hammering drums and gut-rupturing growls. Immediately it is clear that Incantation are back with the full force they have consistently displayed over a lengthy career. With the visceral drum work and utterly ferocious riffing, the instrumental backdrop for the guttural vocal spew is monolithic, conjuring a monstrous storm of morbid, crawling and eerie death metal excellence. Convulsively groovy and packed with ethereally dark energy, the ghostly, doomy sections add a haunting quality to the savage barbarity, giving an otherworldly quality to the music.

Amidst the skull-stomping grooves and rib-cracking blasts, we see blistering lead guitar work add maniacal melodies to the rhythmically riveting musical brilliance. Incantation are a band that has such a unique approach to music, this is showcased wonderfully as we surge through a diverse mixture of textures and tempos, concocting some of the darkest, most evil sounding death metal across no less than a dozen songs. From fast-paced rippers to headbanger-friendly groove, catchy hooks and relentless blasts, there is no denying the huge arsenal of macabre sounds that are offered on this record. The doomy sections intermingle so beautifully with the cavernous atmospherics and then cascade into total carnage seamlessly.

While the feel of the music is undeniably old school, there is nothing overly derivative or repetitive / bland to be found here. There are some parts reminiscent of Bolt Thrower that work marvellously with Incantation’s doomy death metal, but never feel ripped off. This is a sonic hailstorm of malevolent, spectral and furiously aggressive material that is unhinged yet melodious. Thrashing through a medley of varied, expansive and restlessly changing styles, the impeccably massive artillery dropped shows just how wide the scope of these musicians abilities are. The odiously crafted atmospherics and brutal malice entwine you in the enticing spew of true death metal brilliance with no option for escape. Powerful stuff indeed.

As predicted, Incantation have offered another imposing mammoth of visceral, cavernous and expansive death metal delights. Pungent concoctions of hostility and phantasmal soundscapes are what we are gifted from this titanic band, with frenzied yet meditative vitriol. Naturally, this is a must listen for all death metal lovers.

Written for www.nattskog.wordpress.com

I would say that the more and more polished sound is nothing particularly needed for Incantation, but "Sect Of Vile Divinites"...it's a bit different! Well, the band with these changes did not lag behind, did not lose their power and did it with even better thoughts. I will say more, against the background of "Profane Nexus", "Sect..." appears as a more attractive, more specific and addictive material for a longer time. And this despite the fact that the disc fits neatly into the proportions of the previous one and is mostly based on familiar patents.

Of course, this is a good sign in the context of a "cleaned" lp. For the second "Onward To Golgotha" or "Diabolical Conquest" there is no point in counting this for a long time, and in such a more "organized" death metal playing (although this term goes through strangely in the context of this band), "Sect..." clearly shows that the John McEntee's band finds this style in one's element. First of all, I like the atmosphere and moderation of the instruments on this album. Nothing escapes from the mix and does not seem to be done with surgical precision. It fits the overall atmosphere of the disc (in the post-apo style - a la the later Immolation, which shouldn't surprise anyone), and it fits even better with the doomy slowdowns and melodies - surprisingly where I found flaws on previous albums. At this point, there should be mentioned "Black Fathom's Fire", "Siege Hive", "Chant Of Formless Dread" and "Ignis Fatuus", as they best reflect the above-mentioned excellent proportions.

"Sect Of Vile Divinites" is also the abandonment of longer songs. Most of them do not exceed 5 minutes, and a significant part can oscillate with neat 3. So my point is that "Sect..." is really good to listen to and with a lot of commitment due to the good atmosphere. You can also feel that "airing a musty basement" is a natural process for Incantation and that it can come into thrilling albums. "Sect Of Vile Divinites" fits such a theory.

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2021/10/incantation-sect-of-vile-divinities-2020.html

A somewhat better Incantation release that I've heard them belt out in 2020. Definitely solid and steady, not to mention some cool riffs here and there. I must confess that I'm not a longtime fan of this band that started in 1989. They just never struck me as interesting or worth investing time listening to their music. This one has me curious. It's filled with tempo changes, but as a whole, doesn't get too fast. Towards the middle to the end of the album, things (tempos) slow down quite a bit. Not all entirely, but from the beginning of the album towards the end, there's quite a shift in that slowed down riff/drum outputs.

The vocals I'm not a fan of, but it keeps it to being underground. And that has all the difference it's made. I kind of thought this band to always be boring as up until recently I felt that I should give them a try, especially in 2020 where that whole year or just about was awful. And the fact that they were writing in the pandemic made listeners (as I say) curious. Though critics didn't esteem the band making a solid "B-" like I did, but that's their perspective. I thought that they did well enough being that they go through musicians pretty fast and their sound was solid and the quality of the death metal was also that: SOLID.

I was a skeptic at the hereabouts, but I played it a few more then a few more (digital then physical CD) and ended up actually thinking: "hey! this is pretty decent, talk about it." So in retrospect I shut off some negative things I said about this release and pushed them to the river. I felt that their death metal 30 years or just about, has been worthwhile. If you don't appreciate the value of this band, that's your loss. They have some really good riffs and the production quality/mixing/recording were all good. The band's music I favored over the vocals, but the vocals were just so guttural that they have an acquired taste to them.

In conclusion, 'Sect of Vile Divinities' shows us a good chapter in Incantation's discography. They did a better than average job, which I myself didn't initially think that to be possible. But it was and they were SOLID. I think a combination of the riffs, vocals, leads, tempos, etc. were better than just a mere average that this line averaged out to. They play good music and coming from a picky skeptic, that's saying a lot. Let's hope that they continue onto their over 30 year career. Let that alone and show the band support. Check out this album on Spotify or YouTube, see what I'm saying here! Buy the album!

With the amount of profanity, blasphemy and obscure themes the band wrote from their hatred of the church and religion to mere evil entities, this time they dive deep and devoid of divinity. Not much has changed since the band joined Relapse Records, but you’re getting a quantity of songs, unique titles, and the same production. With Sonny now being an official member, the band has another session musician; one young Luke Shively from Dismemberment. He played (or still plays) live bass for the band since 2015 and recorded guitars on this record. It’s sure an honor to have a younger member in a pioneering band like Incantation.

Sect of Vile Divinities offers unique songwriting and instrumentation; whirlwind of fast melodies, striking pitch harmonics, nice overdrive effect on the guitars, the expected doom metal stuff, and an uncomfortable atmosphere. Maybe the drums sound a bit more thrash-like, but not bad. However, I didn’t notice that considerable change in the overall approach to the new music. It sounds like the Incantation we all know, but nothing too mind-blowing.

The opening song has the old school sound with a bit of tweaks of the band’s origins, while songs like Entrails of the Hag Queen and Scribes of the Stygian are on the other end of the spectrum; the atmospheric sound. They also contain a few melodies. More rhythms, explosive solos and blast beats on the shorter songs like Guardians of the Primeval and Chants of Formless Dread, to break the formula. And across the whole record, John’s magnificent death growls are a steal, as always. It’s not the first time the band recorded a quantity of songs than the usual eight to ten, but they’ve offered quite the variety to choose from, as you can tell.

Musically, the record is an improvement over Profane Nexus, but it was a struggle to listen through. It felt as though the band saved all the great material on the second portion, and even then, it lacked a lot of ambition, sometimes energy, and that aggression I miss listening to. As heavy or as brutal as the band can sound, it’s just nothing compared to Vanquish in Vengeance that I can’t stop crediting. With said improvement and a lot of potential like the previous record, it was another dull listen. The best songs are Scribes of the Stygian and Unborn Ambrosia.

With so many death metal bands upping the ante by achieving greater brutality via more highly compressed productions, it’s refreshing to see that some of the early progenitors of the style are sticking to their guns and continuing to churn out a more vintage mode of brutality. Nowadays it’s difficult to say where in the world the style is enjoying its apex of output, but back in the early 90s, there were few places delivering the necrotic goods in the most intense of fashions outside of the United States’ east coast, with Florida and New York being the focal points. Though it’s debatable as to which scene had the edge in terms of raw aggression, there was a clear distinction in character of sound which saw the northern side of this clash moving further away from the style’s extreme thrash metal roots; and though closely associated with the seminal death/thrash pioneering act Revenant, New Jersey’s Incantation arguably set themselves apart from their northeastern contemporaries by veering the furthest into dark territory.

While this outfit’s career has ebbed and flowed a fair bit since the exodus of their seminal front man and inhuman growler Craig Pillard, there has been minimal deviation from their signature early 90s sound save for greater clarity in the production department, and their 2020 excursion into the bleak world of occult-based horror Sect Of Vile Divinities is a case study in translating the death metal sound of 30 years past into the present. Their tried and true formula of sharp, jolting sectional contrast via grinding blast segments comparable to Florida forerunners Morbid Angel and dank, slow-trudging doom moments that dovetail with the dreariness of Autopsy, combined with some mildly thrashing yet muddy elements might seem a tad archaic, but is masterfully accomplished to truly horrific results. It’s a cohesive tapestry of tortured dissonance with no slouches to speak of, though front man and lone founding member John McEntee shines as the dominant force, much as he has since he took over vocal duties in 2004.

True to form, this is an album that lives by crushing heaviness alone, offering little in the way of atmospheric respites from the auditory carnage and sticking to what can be described as a fairly methodical formula. Things start off with a fairly conventional, quasi-thrashing crusher in “Ritual Impurity” that largely runs along a similar path as what one might expect from an up-tempo Cannibal Corpse romp, but with a denser guitar sound, a solo that’s more in line with Trey Azagthoth’s brand of shredding chaos and a more groaning and agonized bark out of McEntee. Similarly fast yet symmetrical offerings such as “Black Fathom’s Fire” and “Shadow-Blade Masters Of Tempest And Maelstrom” take a similar path of balancing a cohesive structure with even more brilliant fits of flashy guitar soloing. Yet out of all the moderate lengthed and conventional offerings to come raging out of this album, closer “Siege Hive” proves to be the most memorable by taking a slightly more grooving path while still peppering the listener’s ears with brilliant bursts of unhinged six-string shredding.

Be this all as it may, there are also some interesting deviations from a well-rounded, old school approach to undead ferocity that deserve consideration. More compact offerings such as the almost melancholy and melodic dirge “Ignis Fatuus” actually comes off as catchy in a musically conventional sense, functioning as sort of an overt death/doom interlude in what is otherwise a largely by the book retread of vintage New York styled death. The equally short yet more chaotic offering “Guardians From The Primeval” takes a brief moment at its inception to channel some of the haunting atmospheric aspects of the early 90s Swedish sound with a brilliant keyboard and clean guitar intro before beheading the listener with a blasting fit of unhinged violence. But the chapter in this anthology of dread that truly showcases this band firing at full blast is the 6 minute journey through oblivion “Unborn Ambrosia”, which throws about every trick in the book into the cauldron and stirs it into a looming, largely slow-paced march into the metaphysical wastelands.

It remains unlikely that this veteran death metal institution will ever top the likes of Onward To Golgotha and Mortal Throne Of Nazarene, but relative to what they’ve done since John McEntee took over the microphone, this album really holds its own and shows a lot of these newer Old School Death Metal revival acts how it’s done. The nostalgia factor for those who remember the days when this style was actually featured prominently on MTV circa 1992-94 is about as blatant as it can be, and while no accompanying video footage is necessary to convey the sense of disquiet that this music conveys, a truly creepy music video for “Entrails Of The Hag Queen” has been making the rounds for the past couple weeks and underscores the grotesque beauty that lay in store here. For those who like their brutality served up dark, cold, and with a bit more of a technical edge than the average old school template, this is one of the better offerings to come out this year.

Originally written for Sonic Perspectives (www.sonicperspectives.com)

Sometimes an artist's impact, and his relevance in the development of a movement or style, is only fully felt years after the release of his work. Vincent Van Gogh is the supreme example that comes to mind. In the music realm, namely in Heavy Metal, bands such as Bathory or Incantation can be seen in the same way. The former becoming the main aesthetic reference for the second wave of black metal, which would emerge in the early nineties, the latter becoming the utmost influence for countless cavern death metallers, who later tried to mimic the aesthetics of the band's first three albums. I would even dare to say that, nowadays, the influence of Incantation in death metal rivals that of monsters of the genre, such as Death, Morbid Angel or Entombed. Anyone like me who followed the band's shy beginnings cannot help but be surprised.

The band's signature, combining ferocity, doom and filth, has become one of the most distinctive and most cloned trademarks in death metal's ecosystem over the past twenty years. One of its main characteristics is its immutability, that is to say, the will to remain essentially faithful to its origins. In this sense, we know perfectly well what awaits us in each Incantation release, leaving only minor details to be unveiled, such as whether the production will be more or less filthy or whether the album will have a greater doom approach.

In Incantation, reliability is a virtue.

As a fan of last decade's three albums, I longed for Sect of Vile Divinities to be a vehicle of continuity. Basically, an extension of the stability McEntee & Co have encountered since Vanquish in Vengeance, something I would call maturity. The fact that the structural line-up stabilized with Chuck Sherwood's arrival was also an important driver for the band's further consolidation in recent years. And Sect of Vile Divinities mirrors that same continuity.

As expected, the band does not introduce any stylistic novelties, as a matter of fact, we sometimes experience an excessive recycling of ideas. But as I mentioned before, this recycling exists since The Infernal Storm, and therefore should be taken lightly. The renowned formula, that blends ferocity, doom and filth, remains unchanged, yet with a hygienic approach similar to Profane Nexus, namely through its polished production. Whether on most intense songs like 'Ritual Impurity (Seven of the Sky is One)', 'Guardians from the Primeval' or 'Chant of Formless Dread', or on doomer tracks such as ' Ignis Fatuus' and 'Scribes of the Stygian', McEntee & Co never venture into overly rough territory, on the contrary, the music always conveys some restraint and maturity. I appreciate this polished, restrained approach, however the more troubled souls may find this aesthetic too hygienic for the band's early standards. Tracks like 'Propitiation' and 'Entrails of the Hag Queen' share some complicity in their doom signatures, with the former presenting one of the album's most distinctive harmonies and a finger tapping in the vein of 'Dirges of Elysium'. Nevertheless, it is in 'Unborn Ambrosia' that we find the finest doom section, immediately after its Reign in Blood-esque drumming moment. Despite its overall consistency, I would argue that songs like 'Shadow-Blade Masters of Tempest and Maelstrom' or 'Black Fathom's Fire' are the ones that best reflect the band's and album's DNA, the latter even being my favorite track. McEntee's guitar and vocals keep the same filthy personality, thus respecting his legacy and identity, yet the ever-consistent performance of his loyal fellow drummer Kyle Severn also deserves to be highlighted. His work, always for the benefit of the song, is both essential and indispensable, firmly ensuring the solid foundations that sustain the band's music. The symbiosis between McEntee and Kyle is absolute.

Essentially, Sect of Vile Divinities is a vehicle of continuity framed within Incantation's most recent aesthetics. It carries the heavy legacy of a band that proudly strives to be true to itself and to its story. One can safely say that the song remains the same, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Originally written for www.sputnikmusic.com