DIRGES OF ELYSIUM

Dirges of Elysium, Incantation's 10th full-length, is Incantation through and through, It's loud, It crawls, It rips, Kyle Severn plays drums not as precise time-keeper, but as one of the trio's voices, Bassist Chuck Sherwood works hard to be the background support, You often don't notice him, but when you do it's for good reason. (The counter-melody he plays on the instrumental title track, for instance.) John McEntee remains one of death metal's riff geniuses, able to jab with needling tremolos and zoom in on sustained chords, Like his playing, his growl is simple but effective, He grunts with old-school syncopation, picking his spots to put a phrase through the McEntee vocal chord wringer, That patience is his trademark, He knows that in the long run, a well-placed release is better than an album of crescendos that build nothing and go nowhere, After all, he's been doing this a long time