ASPHYX — Incoming Death (review)

Album · 2016 · Death Metal

3.5/5 · 2017-09-19
voila_la_scorie

Newsweek, April 28, 1991 - "The jazz trombonist Ray Anderson noticed some years back that when he sang at certain pitches, his voice split in two. His vocal cords produced one note, and the skin outside the larynx produced a second. The first is a cartoonish Satchmo styling; its shadow sounds like Satchmo through an aerosol can. Together, vying their way through a standard like Duke Ellington's 'I'm Just a Lucky So and So,' they're as queerly beautiful and weird a voice as you're likely to hear."

My trombonist friend let me hear Ray Anderson's unique vocal style back in the early nineties, and I bring it up here because I have never heard anyone sing that way since until now. Well, alright, Anderson sings and Asphyx's vocalist Martin van Drunen does whatever it is death vocalists do: growl, bellow, roar, vociferate. But van Drunen does so with a maniacal-sounding second tone that seems to come from projecting his voice into the far back of his nasal passages, giving his vocal style quality unique to death metal vocal styles. It may give you chills, drive you mad, make you wince, or elicit a bout of uncontrollable laughter. In any case, this vocal sound is not going to be for everyone.

This was not my first choice for an Asphyx purchase. "The Rack", "Last One on Earth" (creepy cover!), or the latest release sounded better from the previews, or rather pre-listens I had. But if I was going to bring home as many new bands to my collection as possible then I had to go for albums under ¥1,000. I chose "Incoming Death".

This is not altogether speedy or technical death metal. The doom elements are strong in the riffs and tempo. The overall sound is really heavy and sometimes it feels like the audio equivalent of lying face down flat on the street while a 500kg weight is dragged back and forth over your body. The only reprieve we get is a solemn acoustic guitar outro to "The Grand Denial" and a similarly forlorn piano outro to "Subterra Incognito". Otherwise it's just absolute unrelenting heaviness to mash your brain to a quivering pulp.

Though much of the album stays fairly Black Sabbath-esque mid-tempo, there are pulverizing moments of slow and thunderous power chords as well as charged speed burners. The title track is a mere 1:56 and has all the grace and subtlety of a nuclear-powered locomotive exploding through the caverns of Hell. The opening track "Candiru", about a fish in the Amazon that enters its prey through the anal orifice and proceeds to eat the delicate innards from the inside, is a perfectly brutal beast to kick off the album. "Wardroid" has one of those crushing riffs that astound because I can't help but be awed by the fact that after 65 years of guitar riff-based music people are still coming up with simple but highly exciting and evocative riffs.

The overall album leaves a favourable impression; however, not every track is a thriller. Personally I find some like "It Came from the Skies" or "The Grand Denial" to be moments where the excitement dips a little. But what keeps me interested are the lyrical topics. Van Drunen's vocals are often clear enough to pick out the lyrics and there's a theme of innocents becoming victims of evil deliberate or initiated through other actions. "The Feeder" had me puzzled at first because it seemed the "feeder" was a woman who lures a man into a romantic relationship where he spends lots of money on her and eventually letting her move in, thus giving her control over his life to her wicked satisfaction. Not very death metal. But the story ends with him murdering her and eating her corpse, revealing the feeder to be the man who lured the woman!

I can't say if this is the best album in Asphyx's discography but I am suitably impressed enough to take a look at ordering one of their older releases, perhaps "Last One on Earth". For really heavy death / doom, Asphyx would be a good band to check out.

more than 2 years ago
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voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Nightfly, thanks. Your question is interesting because I have a list of death, black, doom, and even thrash and prog metal bands. I am just recently reviewing the clutch of albums I brought home in August. An order of a dozen more is on the way!