REVIEW SOULSTORM "DARKNESS VISIBLE"

This time I'm presenting an album that I discovered by chance while on vacation in Tenerife at the local record store called Rock Shop in Santa Cruz, a remarkable little store by the way. It's about the Canadian Soulstorm, more precisely from Toronto, who celebrate an absolutely outstanding mixture of industrial and death metal on their debut album from 1992 called “Darkness visible”, so a band member wore Grave shirts in band photos. Of course, Pitch Shifter and Godflesh and the early Fear Factory were the main inspiration here, but the band around mastermind, guitarist, bassist and singer Nick Sagias really didn't have to hide behind their quality and compositional skills in any way. However, because of the vocals, the pendulum often swings more in the direction of death metal, although there are also one or two clean vocal parts that bring back memories of Fear Factory.

INTERVIEW INCANTATION

"In death metal there are no rules, it's just about expressing your inner most dark feelings. We have our own vision and at times the masses didn’t always get it. But I think over the last few years more and more death metal fans understand what we are trying to express with our music. It’s like the scene caught up with us."  

Incantation, who have been around since the distant year of 1989, have been a constant gourmet treat for fans of dark, dirty death metal since their debut album "Onward to Golgotha" in 1992. Fortunately, according to the motto "what goes around comes around", the band's qualities seem to be getting around more and more, so that the latest album "Sect of Vile Divinities" can already be considered the biggest commercial success in the band's history.The author of this blog is a die-hard follower of the band, and so the opportunity had finally come to talk to band founder and scene veteran John Mc Entee, who plays guitar and is responsible for the vocals, about various things. The frontman turned out to be a very thoughtful and reflective guy.

Hey, how are you at the moment? I hope you and your families, relatives and friends are healthy! How is it corona-wise with you in Pennsylvania at the moment?

All is good here. I now live in Greensboro, North Carolina for the last few years and it’s totally amazing down here. For me, the lockdown has been ok. I’m kinda a loner so I don’t really like to be around other people unless it’s friends or horror or metal people. For the band, it has been great, we didn’t know what to expect releasing the “Sect of Vile Divinities” album a-mist the pandemic, but it ended up being a major success for us, which was super cool.

I know it’s been a difficult time for almost everyone over this pandemic and I have sadly even lost a few friends due to it. It's just my personality to want to make the best out of any situation. I’m also very fortunate to have an amazing home life and that really makes everything seem great.