Incantation
Onward to Golgotha

Discovering forgotten Death Metal, chapter fourteen. Sometimes I wonder why I don't review "Master Of Puppets" or "Nevermind" or "Chaos AD" or one of those albums that history has rightfully (sometimes even "excessively") paid tribute to: instead, every blessed (or rather, cursed, which is more Brutal) time, I find myself with dusty albums, picked up from the shelves of some fanatical metalhead from the early nineties who died by suicide or liver cirrhosis in 1996, in protest against the decline of Death Metal. The image, although perhaps too fanciful, effectively expresses the concept; my eyes are full of tears as I write these "sudate carte" because I realize I'm the only custodian of the historical memory of Death Metal. And who indeed remembers the seminal debut of Incantation? No one, the Homines (non più) Sapientes Brutallarenses prefer to buy "Kill" by Cannibal Corpse blindly (and, in the end, who can blame them, you just need the previous album and you already know how the next one will be) rather than tracing back to the origins and understanding who they are and where they come from; but this is evolution, forgetting the Mores Maiorum Brutallarorum in favor of more accessible and "fashionable" CDs... "Ahi servo Brutal...nave sanza nocchiero in gran tempesta"...

Jokes aside, it is truly sad that works of the caliber of this "Onward To Golgotha" are completely forgotten by posterity and, what is worse, that the significant influence they had on bands to come is even forgotten; because an outrageous number (and I repeat, "an outrageous number") of Death Metal scene groups draw from this great work and, although less, from the subsequent chapters of the Americans Incantation, natives of Pennsylvania. Not by chance, their name appears in the list of acknowledgments in the booklets of CDs from bands all over the world (from the Canadians Cryptopsy to the Japanese Defiled).

The album, released between 1991 and 1992, represents an exception in the Death scene of the time; while Death was paving the way for experimentation, Carcass and Napalm Death were abandoning Grind, while Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation were laying the foundation for the so-called Brutal Death, and while a large segment of bands was playing pure and damn Death Metal, Incantation, out of nowhere, created Death Doom. A similar thing was done two years earlier by fellow Americans Accidental Suicide and, more or less simultaneously, by Autopsy (other fellow Americans, much more Death than Doom) and the English Benediction. However, Incantation, unlike the others listed, propose a Death Doom completely devoid of Thrash elements and, in some aspects, closer to what would become Brutal Death. To many of you, this may seem like a joke, given that Brutal is one of the fastest subgenres of Metal and Doom certainly the slowest; but that's how it is, all their songs swing between extremely fast and incredibly stretched and slow tempos. Don't be confused though, it's not just about alternating faster or slower tempos, it's about constructing songs that focus on slowing down; in other words, speed serves to exalt slowness, acceleration serves to keep you on edge and make you literally crave the arrival of those infinite four-four bars.

Because the accelerations aren't beautiful, on the contrary, they are absolutely unnatural and do nothing but increase the sense of oppression. It's difficult, in a context like this, to determine the band's technical rate: from the fast parts one would conclude that our guys have a good preparation, which, however, in the more Doomish ones, remains well hidden behind a wall of power and nothing else. Every time the drummer "pushes the pedal", one is amazed, almost annoyed by the blast beat, by that guitar that performs scales at great speed while until just before and even after plays and will play pachydermic chords. Songs like "Blasphemous Cremation", "Golgotha" or "Christening The Afterbirth" (all with an anti-Christian and even satanic character) best represent what Incantation is: a march towards the flames of Hell. The air you breathe is decidedly stale, foul-smelling, black; the mood is an integral part of every song. In short, if you're in a good mood, I would advise against choosing an album like this (unless you hate being in a good mood, like me); there is no space for fun in "Onward To Golgotha", there is only space for a hatred so intense it can be cut with a knife. A significant role in this sense is played by the vocalist, endowed with a profoundly deep and dark growling (reminds me of Nile's), and the bassist, who replaced a certain Will Rahmer (later a member of Mortician) and is capable of an unusual performance in this genre: despite the production being very raw, he wants to be heard at all costs and with his instrument contributes to recreating those catacombal atmospheres that characterize Incantation. Surely this band is not without flaws, now rooted for years in the same sound (they haven't changed a jot throughout their career) and sometimes boring even within this single album; the risk of structuring songs in the same way is to make them look too similar and kill the listener's attention. For obvious reasons, some songs turn out to be superfluous and lengthy and the score inevitably suffers. However, the historical significance of "Onward To Golgotha" is undeniably very large: the way of playing of many among the new generations, repetita iuvant, is inspired by what this band did (and particularly by this debut album). An absolutely mandatory CD for those who listen to Death Metal, not only for its importance but also for its decidedly good quality.