Incarnated's latest offer us both the best and worst of Death
Poland seems to be offering us, the listener, a veritable treasure-heap of great quality black and death metal bands at the moment, be it Behemoth, Vesania, Decapitated or the old-classics of Vader, there is something about Poland's extreme metal scene that keeps on churning out some of the best stuff you can find today. Now, will Incarnated prove to be another member of this long line of top-notch bands? Well, Yes and No. Incarnated offer us a perfect example of good quality song writing ruined by poor vocal performances and bad production with their latest album, their 2nd in 14 years, 'Pleasure Of Consumption'.
Opener 'Dying Sounds', mid-album pleaser 'Dead House' and the more varied-sounding 'Oscullum Obscenum' offer us the choicest cuts of the album. Heavy guitars and intricate sound-structures and rhythms? Yes please! In both the ten new songs on the album, and the reproductions of three older demo songs 'Genetic Deformations', 'Rotten Visions' and 'Your Mad Mind' Incarnated show us many glimpses of clever new-ideas blended into the traditional death metal style, it is a shame then there are several aspects of the album letting the whole down.
One thing that is really lacking on 'Pleasure Of Consumption' is good quality production. Whether the choice for an undeveloped sound was intentional, hopefully leading to some sort of "raw" style, or not, the mix is still frankly not right. The drums, as you would expect in classic death metal, are prominent. However they lack any real power or punch to them making it just sound like a pitter-patter over the top of the rest of the music. The vocals drown out the guitar parts, which is unfortunate as the guitars are immensely more varied and interesting than the cookie-cutter death style vocals on offer here. The guitars, as just mentioned, are simply too low-fi and fuzzy to have any real effect. Overall the mix transforms what could be a good set of quality, yet unoriginal, death metal tunes into a CD, which becomes a chore to listen to.
Overall 'Pleasures Of Consumption' is quite honestly not much of a pleasure to listen to. There is potential here, and Incarnated have proved since their formation that they have staying power, so we can only hope they learn from the mistakes and poor production of this record and come back having learnt something with more albums in the future. Incarnated are a perfect example in 'Pleasures Of Consumption' of obvious untapped potential, and we can only hope that this situation doesn't last for too long! Whilst there are many "better" CDs being released at this moment, for fans of the death metal genre this release may be worth a serious inquiry into.