Brutal Deluxe
I think Stockholm must have more metal bands per square mile than any other city, (does anyone have an actual statistic on this?) Lucky devils. I think Manchester has a similar stat in regard to indie bands. It's just not fair. This time the city is home to Death Metal's Insision (great name). They've recently released their third album, 'Ikon,' on their new label, Dental Records.
Insision perhaps have more in common with Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel and Deicide than with At The Gates. As you can probably tell, 'Ikon' is as heavy as shit. It incorporates blast beats, devastatingly guttural growls from vocalist Carl Birath and intricate guitar work from Roger Johansson.
Ikon isn't for the faint hearted and Sunday death metal fans. It's a brutal trip about everything that's appealing about the genre. The riffs are excellent and interesting, the songs are varied without the band losing any credibility and the production is smooth, tidy, yet delivers in pure sonic aggression. The musicianship is simply jaw dropping. I challenge drummer Daniel Ekeroth into how many feet he actually has. His performance on 'By Habit' is nothing short of stunning.
'Unbind My Hands' has the cheek to make you tap your foot, 'Into The Cold' is the musical equivalent of driving a nail into your own head and 'Breathing The Black Dust' is breathtaking in it's over the top delivery. There are so many good ideas littered amidst the thrashing, for example at 0:35 on 'Entangled In Thorns' and 1:47 in 'The Magnet Soul'. These ideas do take a while to digest if you're not familiar with such face-tearing music but with the excellent production and great riffage it's easy to keep coming back to 'Ikon' due to it's surprising listenability.
Any fan of the aforementioned bands will probably be aware of Insision, and if they're not then they'd do well to check out this long player. Well, to be honest, it's not that long, but it's quality over quantity and still worthy of Morbid Angel fans to check it out.
Ikon is available now.