Proclamation

I can't believe that they don't have more reviews. This is best melodic death metal release of all time! Meanwhile, this is my first melodic death metal album, I ever listened. I have listened to Arch Enemy and Norther songs before, but I was not impressed. Even more, I thought that whole genre was something, that does not need attention. But when I listened to it, I thought that my taste in music was reborn.

Main part here is keyboards. Without keyboards, guitars would be nothing. Keyboards perfectly arrange everything in almost every scale. In the end of the song ‘Festivals of Atonement’ keyboards make melody on piano sound, which is played along with bass. Also keyboards lead songs ‘Affinity’, ‘Where Fallen Apostles Assemble’, ‘Led by Tears’ and etc.

Guitars mainly play quick and rough riffs on first string, but there are some parts, when guitars play on fifth string, for example, on the chorus of the song ‘Where Fallen Apostles Assemble’. Main thing about guitars in this album that I like is that it has 100% melodic death metal technique. Many other bands tried to do this kind of technique, but usually they exceed and it became technical melodic death metal. But about Incarnia, they have enough technique. They did not exceed, which shows, that they worked on every song very much.

Here are mainly classical solos on last string. They are quick, while second guitar makes background on the first string. But also, in the song ‘Where Fallen Apostles Assemble’, we can hear calm, emotional solo on almost acoustic sound. In the song ‘Yersinia Pestis’ solo starts with one guitar playing on last string and second guitar making background on first string. Suddenly second guitar starts playing same melody on fifth string and background is made with one strum on first string.

I'm not a bassist and do not understand much about this instrument, but can say that it's not easy to play something like this. In the end of the song ‘Festivals of Atonement’ bass plays out of mix along with keyboards. Except this moment, bass almost can never be heard out of mix.

Second special thing in this album is drumming. Drummer is really master and can become one of the best metal drummers of all time, if he does not leave his career. He uses double basses and does it so quickly, that it can not be imagined; only listened. Along with double basses, sounds hihats and snare at same time. Sometimes double basses are quick and snare slow, and sometimes double basses are slow and snare is quick, which seemed most difficult to me (intro of the song ‘Festivals of Atonement’). Everything this makes music more extreme.

Also the thing I liked most at first, were vocals. Mixing up rasps and growls give diversity to the music. Also in some songs little parts of clean vocals can be heard, for example: ‘Yersinia Pestis’, ‘Carrion’ and etc.

When I heard this album, I listened to it again, again, again and again. It is impossible to stand against magic of this album. This album made me to look further in the genre, but unfortunately, I couldn't find second band like Incarnia and second album like ‘Proclamation’.

If you like keyboard-driven, Gothenburg-style, melodic death metal that's catchy as ebola and both beautiful and evil enough to keep a serrated edge on it, then Incarnia’s debut album, Proclamation, will be a happy discovery. Incarnia is from Montreal, but their musical hearts reside in the land of bands like Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium, late-stage Hypocrisy, Mors Principium Est, and (more recently) Zonaria.

For a young band's debut release, Proclamation is a remarkably assured, remarkably sophisticated offering of melody-drenched melodeath that also triggers the headbang reflex quite nicely. The production on Proclamation is absolutely aces high, which is important, because the music has an epic quality that's enhanced by the brilliance of the mix and the sharpness of the sound. Most of the songs include grinding buzzsaw guitar rhythms or staccato bursts of fuzzed-out riffage, as well as machine-gun drumming, and songs like "Carrion" even allow bass sweeps to take the lead.

As confident and capable as those instrumentalists are, the keyboards are the star of this show. Vincent Grenier provides a cornucopia of sounds -- pulsating rhythms and blazing runs on "Festival of Atonement", the piano melody that organizes the music on "Led by Tears", episodes of swirling ambience on "Carrion", the beautiful soaring anthem that finishes the closing instrumental, "Affinity", and much more.

There are more keyboard solos on this album than guitar solos, but there are some soulfully sweet guitar leads on songs like "Where Fallen Apostles Assemble" and "Affinity" that achieve a wonderful tone. As for the vocals, no clean singing is to be found on Proclamation, but Marc Alexandre proves that it’s possible to still really sing -- to still achieve range and emotion and even melody -- while intelligibly giving voice to the lyrics through growls and double-bladed rasping howls.

Having said all of this, what elevates Proclamation well above the average debut is the unusual maturity evident in the songwriting. These seven songs beckon you to return again and again. Their melodies catch in your head, and their movement from the bestial to the sublime resonate: They feed that yearning some of us sometimes have for both aggressive extremity and memorable melody.

"Yersinia Pestis" isn't the best example on the album of everything Incarnia is capable of pulling off, but it's the best example of that melding of evil-sounding power and epic majesty. It's important to understand that "yersinia pestis" is the name of the bacteria that causes the black plague, because that explains the lyrics, which tell of the harrowing destruction that the disease inflicted on humanity. The lyrics are yet one more instance of Incarnia's unexpected , ahead-of-their-age, achievements. They’re literate and poetic, and they’re hard to get out of your head.

In sum, Proclamation is a very complete package of musical accomplishment that marks an auspicious start for Incarnia’s recording career.