siLLy puPPy While INCANTATION recorded their second album MORTAL THRONE OF NAZARENE shortly after the debut “Onward To Golgotha,” Relapse Records demanded that the band re-record the entire album because they weren’t satisfied with the results and thus the release date was pushed back an entire year. Due to record company pressures the ever changing cast members of INCANTATION’s existence began to shake things up early on as Ronny Deo was replaced by Dan Kamp on bass however at this stage, the rest of the band remained the same as well as the cover artwork by artist Miran Kim conjuring up the most macabre hellish scenes including an inlay orgy scene with a goat-headed Luciferian figure initiating the twisted kinky scenes of perversion. Likewise all those excellent evil as fuck track titles such as “Demonic Incarnate” and “Blissful Bloodshower” haven’t let up one bit! No Disneyfication going on on this sophomore effort!

The second album MORTAL THRONE OF NAZARENE from INCANTATION pretty much follows suit with their unique mix of blackened death metal with a healthy dose of doom and gloom and in sync with the Christophobic album title more than unleashes the blighted blasphemy at full decibelage in lyrical prose, NOT that you can understand a single word of the guttural growls purring out of lead singer Craig Pillard’s vox box. The music is still just as down tuned and heavily murky with strong crunchy riffs sputtering along at full metal speed with segments of doom metal snail’s paced moments allowing the hellish soundscapes to reseed the fields of dread before the assailing pummeling of blastbeat drumming outbursts and fuzzed out death metal riffs steal the show once again. The music for the most part follows these general patterns and eschews any particular song structures which can make the tracks a little hard to follow at first but for me it only adds to the uncompromising brutality and creates a deathly doomed deliciousness that few other acts of the day were capable of.

While most tracks are primarily based in death metal with doom and blackened elements popping up, some like “The Ibex Moon” are more predominately the other way around although it crescendos with Morbid Angel type chaos including those disturbing guitar squeals. “Blissful Bloodshower” is a full-fledged sonic assault that is more in the deathcore arena and lasts only under a minute. My favorite track is the longest closer “Abolishment Of Immaculate Serenity” which takes more cues from My Dying Bride than Morbid Angel as it begins with a slow creeping down-tuned doom metal riff with heavy atmospheric guitar feedback adding a sludgy layer that slowly ratchets up the doomy metal anguish as the tempo increases until guitar solos squeal out like prematurely lit fireworks in a warehouse fire.

MORTAL THRONE OF NAZARENE merely extends the deathly hellish soundscapes of the debut album and won’t win over any non-fans of that release. While there isn’t a lot to differentiate the two releases, i’d have to say that this one is a tad more sophisticated with more thought paid attention as to how the tracks develop without sacrificing any of that totally evil as fuck menacing feel. While doom metal elements were definitely present on the debut, here entire tracks such as the eight minute closer are primarily based in the down-tuned slow tempo doom metal world. I personally like this album a smidge better than the first but for me they go together like love and marriage or a horse and carriage or a partridge in a pear tree! Basically just an excellent followup to one of the most evil sounding death metal bands of the early 90s.

Murphy One pallid noon the kindness of density struck me odd. As I started to vociferate over, things, names, music, people that struck me as dense, the latter of this list sprawling into quite an oration, but that is of no import here, I realised I have a penchant for the aurally dense. And this my kind friends is where my adoration for Incantation begins, then propagates above and beyond. I've heard many say, with conviction mind you, 'Mortal Throne of Nazarene' is DARK! (if the tale is to be believed), darker than any of those frost bitten, makeup ridden, black metal cohorts. Woe to the soul who disagrees. I, myself, am not one to swallow all that comes my way with placid concurrence, but the masses might be onto something.

Having procured dense & dark from this havoc, we've found ourselves a sturdy platform to elucidate on the anomalous nature of this album. I thought to myself once, twice when the weathers fine, by God, Incantation has unleashed a poisonous miasma all fetid and damned into the world. Nurturing the doomed and sodden mien of their first album ‘Onward to Golgotha’ with a honed labour of love, letting burgeon a natural progression into the abyss. They’ve taken what I've cradled, misguidedly, over the years as love for ol’ school death metal and enameled it in a creeping darkness that comes at you from roundabout. Sometimes it trudges along in contented doom, only to jolt the neck and turn the stomach with brevity of speed. An effortless permutation of tremolo picking and power cords is a testament to the musicianship of McEntee and Pillard, this duel draped heavily with rhythms from top to toe, that is bass and drum. But, in all honesty, these chaps could be banging away at potatoes and carrots for all I care, ‘tis the summation of all the intricacies that are its splendour. No dichotomy of wills. A seamless whole.

If I were to grasp at the tendrils of my mind to make tenuous statements of ‘who are their ilk?’ I’d be bewildered by the pointlessness of such an act, but I will try nevertheless, with what I deem to be an apt comparison. Take Demilich’s ‘Nespithe’ from the year before, its deviant dissonances coming at your mind from angles best left untold, probing for gaps to fill... you know it well. Keep this thought. But now exchange Demilich’s angular fashioning with the notion of miasmas and you’ll be left with Incantation’s dense cloud that stains the mind with rancour. Not to dup the fool with this comparison, there is nothing special about the vocals, no bleaching from within, just a concerted effort, which turns into their biggest downfall.

Anyway, hats off to Incantation for giving me years entertainment in 35min blocks.