SPAWN OF POSSESSION — Incurso (review)

SPAWN OF POSSESSION — Incurso album cover Album · 2012 · Technical Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
adg211288
Incurso is the third full-length album by Swedish technical death metal act Spawn of Possession. The album was released in 2012, their first in six years. The band’s line-up has been largely reworked in this time, leaving only two members of the band who performed on their last album Noctambulant (2006) still with the band on Incurso; guitarist Jonas Bryssling and drummer Dennis Röndum, the latter of which has switched to vocals.

Incurso is primarily a technical death metal release, as with the prior albums. It also draws very slightly on progressive death metal influences and, particularly in the closing track Apparition, symphonic death metal. The technical aspect is the main feature here though as the driving force behind the music.

While Incurso does set a very strong first impression because of the band’s excellent technical playing, which really is about as top grade as you’ll likely find, it is something of a double-edged sword in that after the initial good impressions have worn off it does start to feel like the band is using their technical prowess just because they can and while I do still enjoy the songs the band has provided on Incurso, I can’t help but consider it somewhat inferior to some of the other technical death metal releases I’ve encountered in the last couple of years. The musicianship is excellent and honestly unfaultable, and Dennis Röndum provides a strong if rather incomprehensible vocal performance. The real problem is that the songs lack a bit of proper death metal bite where the riffs are concerned for the most part due to the sheer amount of technical playing going on. That said the album doesn’t lack a brutal edge since the growling is deep and powerful.

There are however exceptions among the tracks which allow the album to remain in fairly high scored territory for me though. Apparition with its symphonic elements is about as good a closer for the album as Spawn of Possession could possibly have done and I also enjoy The Evangelist a lot although it does feel a bit overlong at times.

In short, I have enjoyed my experience with Incurso, and I think a praiseworthy score is in order. I don’t think on the other hand it will be a technical death metal album I return to much whenever I feel like hearing something out of the genre, and therein lies the biggest issue with Incurso; so much goes on where the technical playing is concerned that the majority of the tracks ultimately don’t leave much of a lasting impression as songs, and the album comes over as something of an indulgence. It is good, but it could easily have been great or better.

7.4/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))
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