Blood Incantation – Starspawn

Metal is a funny thing. There are fans who seemingly want their favorite bands to never change, and just as many others who want to see the next new thing. Metal has been sub-divided into so many subgenres that, if you're like me, you just throw up your hands and separate it into good metal and bad metal. I'm not a big fan of all the subgenres but it would be hard to describe this album without at least scratching the surface of all that. So here goes.

Blood Incantation have dropped a really amazing album on us with “Starspawn”. The music takes the listener in so many directions that it would be pointless to try to describe them or their music as this or that genre. At their roots, I would say they are a technical death metal band, but that would be like saying Beethoven was a piano player. When the opening track on your album is a thirteen and a half minute epic that covers every death metal subgenre that I can think of, plus black metal and even some doomy sounding stuff, and it all sounds seamless, and you just want to play that track again, right away, I think its safe to say that these guys have something pretty unique going on. What impresses me the most is that they have taken a style of music that many people, even fans of the style, consider to be done, used up, that nothing new will ever come of it, and really invigorated it with this album.They have shown that with enough talent and chops and straight up ballsiness to try new things and put them together in ways that no one else has, you can breathe new life into a well-rotted corpse.

All of these songs work. You hear one by itself and as I noted above, you want to listen to it again, right away. You hear the entire album, and everything fits, everything feels as though it tells you a story, takes you on a journey, and you want to hear it again. There is a lot in death metal that is tried and true and traditional and you can find those bands that do exactly that. They are a dime a dozen, as the saying goes. But bands that want to rip death metal a new one, not just the music itself but its fans as well, that is something new. It is exciting for me to listen to this and know that a type of music I have loved for a long time can still have something new.

We're supposed to tell you what these bands and music sound like in these reviews. Its not a cop out to say, I can't do that with this band. They definitely have their own take on things, and they combine so many different styles of metal that it is hard to pin it down. They are just a metal band, and if there is any style of metal at all that you like, you will dig these guys. Unless you are so far up your own ass with being “kvlt” and “troo” that you can't see a good thing when it appears in front of you.

I know I say this a lot, but part of what we do here is write about what we really dig. Buy this album. It's out now on Dark Descent. Just do it. Trust me on this. You're going to really like it, maybe even love it. Go see these guys live. Support things like this. It is what will keep our great metal community going.

-ODIN



Comments