50%
The Incantus are an Australian band that began in the depths of New South Wales before blooming into full band existence in Victoria, playing a style best described as melodic death.
Setting up the album is the cinematic Horror with a spoken word piece drawn from some obscure cinema classic, I assume – I am not a big film buff. Set up as an intro track, it is a long introduction, taking four minutes to set up the rest of the album. The album then leaps to properly life with ‘Sidhe of the Barrow’, showing what the band is capable of. Then without warning, power metal riffs and military drums ring out, opening Protraction of Night as it changes the pace back to the plod that opened the album. This seems to be the pace of The Incantus in general, as the next two tracks bled into each other and I missed them the first couple of listen throughs, assuming it was just one long bloody track.
But then along comes the intro of Goddess Ablaze to shake the senses a little before the best guitar solo on the album until The Incantus insist on sinking into that similar trudge that, while tried and true, has me reaching for something better to do with my time by the middle of the album as the songs drag on too long and too dry.
Thankfully I didn’t put the headphones up early, lest I would have missed The Fray. The best track on here, it takes all elements of the band: the speed, the plod, the doom and darkness, and adds some ethereal flair. If only there was more bass in the mix to make it easier on the ear, this would go a long way to making the album a bigger winner. Yes, one track can do that for an album and The Fray is that one here.
It distresses me when I can’t dig an album as much as I thought I would. Even more so when it is an Australian band, because I want to see everyone from our small dot on the map succeed and show the rest of the world how good we are. But this album grates in all the wrong ways. The vocals are one dimensional most of the time and the plodding soundtrack underneath it plus dry production just make it a hard listen. I have no doubt they are probably a great live band, as the music has some great passages, and the lyrics tell some good stories.
