The Master Alchemist

Holy. Fuck.

Alright, so, Invasion.

An obscure short-lived stoner metal band, with only a small handful of releases to their name. Their only full-length album is this, The Master Alchemist.

AND HOW!

This beast kicks off it's psyched-out punk-metal trip with an intro of interstellar vibes and cross-dimensional bong-rips. The first track, Follow The Smoke, is pitch-perfect for slowly engaging the listener and preparing them for the album's far-out mood. If this was any other stoner album, it'd most likely descend into riffs of a molasses pace with some grungy guy howling about the cosmos and women you might find in the pages of Heavy Metal magazine.

But instead, with the second track Conjure War, Invasion speeds it up to punk velocities and introduces one of the finest idiosyncrasies the world of metal has ever seen: a black female vocalist.

Now, while no other bands come to mind as I hunch over my computer writing this, a black female vocalist fronting a metal band is something so wildly surreal and equally wonderful, I must say I immediately fell in love with the vocal stylings of Chan Brown (who, if memory serves me correctly, is currently fronting Vodun, a similar-sounding stoner outfit I have yet to listen to). Her soulful voice is the perfect foil to the stoned noise-sludge riffs and thunderous punk rhythms this album features prominently. I feel that this band has crafted a sound so unique, it really puts to shame the other bands that feature female vocalists. Female vocalists are nothing new in metal, and female vocalists in stoner metal are a breed of their own, Invasion wholesale knocks out bands like Acid Kind, Albino Python, and 13. Those bands go for either weed-induced groaning or clean soaring vocals. Invasion opts for a sense of sass and energy that is wholly original and of their own conception.

The music itself, in case your mind hasn't clicked yet, is kick-fucking-ass. Like the vocals, the wicked riffing of Marek Steven and thunderous drumming of Zel Kaute are energetic and perpetual, sending the record (and its listeners) not on a slow, sight seeing voyage through a distant galaxy, it speeds on through, hitting so many beats so quickly that it's like being high in an accelerator designed like a alchemical war-zone.

It really is something else.

Alas, my discovery of this beauty of an album was too late. Invasion are no more, having disbanded in 2011. Chan Brown and Zel Kaute currently sing and drum in Vodun, respectively. Marek Steven is, at the time of writing, a guitarist in Amulet and performing under the name Heathen Steven (ha!). While the latter is far more basic heavy metal outfit, Vodun seems to keep Invasion's unique brand of raging stoner-punk alive and well, albeit under a voodoo gimmick rather than a space-alchemy gimmick. And yet, thank god for this album. Truly one of the great random finds of my life.

Godspeed, Invasion. Godspeed.