Incantation – Sect of Vile Divinities (Review)

Incantation are a legendary US death metal band and this is their twelfth album.

The death metal masters return. After 2017’s enjoyable Profane Nexus, I was looking forward to Sect of Vile Divinities, but wasn’t quite expecting just how damn good it would be.

After 30 years of plying their trade, Incantation know how to play death metal, and Sect of Vile Divinities is an extremely strong outing for the band. Once again we get treated to an old-school brew of formidable death metal mixed with elements of dark doom. Sect of Vile Divinities is Incantation in their finest classic form, doing what they do best. I really enjoy this album, and it’s largely down to the simple fact that the band know how to write material like this, (as you would expect), and these new songs are extremely satisfying examples of their art.

Full of choice riffs and melodies, this is an album that doesn’t stop giving. Guitars can brutally pummel you one moment, and slither lethally across your skin the next. This is an album of dark aggression and doom-filled resonance. Sinister moods and vicious growls are constant companions as the very well-crafted songs drag you down into the murk, never to be seen again.

Special note must be made, I feel, of the leads and solos, which I particularly like. More than this though, is how these leads and solos fit into the music’s whole; as I’ve said before, Incantation certainly know how to write songs.

This is a ludicrously strong and enjoyable death metal album from one of the masters of the genre. For anyone with a taste for old-school death metal this surely counts as an essential listen.