Incantation belong to that handful of bands who, at the turn of the 1990s, defined what the most subterranean death metal would be — that of the cellar and the blasphemy, at the antipodes of technical refinement. More than thirty years on, the American band have yielded none of their darkness, and Unholy Deification, hailed by the critics (an 85 average across six reviews), offers overwhelming proof of it.
The sound, first: that cavernous, muddy production, where the guitars seem to rise from the depths of the earth. Incantation cultivate the art of contrast between the surges of blast beats and the doom slowdowns, those passages where the tempo drags like a funeral procession. This is a death metal that thinks in terms of atmosphere as much as violence.
The critics hail the coherence of a band that, unlike so many others, has never sought to mellow or modernise. Unholy Deification could have appeared in 1994; it appears in 2023 with the same conviction, the same intransigence. Where other veterans capitulate or caricature themselves, Incantation remain faithful to their creed.
This obstinate refusal of compromise may repel unaccustomed ears: the record is arid, without melodic concession, wholly turned toward the evocation of a hostile beyond. But for the lover of authentic death metal, it constitutes a black mass of rare intensity.
Verdict: 8.5. A monolithic, uncompromising record, reminding us that death metal, at its source, was a matter of inverted faith and pure darkness.
