By Jason Wellwood
I’m not familiar with Invasion but I want to be! This album is pulverizing right out of the gate. Sonically, it’s intense and to a degree, even a little painful! Intercut with news reports from WWII, Orchestrated Kill Maneuver is brutal and unrelenting. Guttural and throat wrenching are the words I’d use to describe singer Pleghm’s style, which shouldn’t be a surprise given his name. The delivery in this manner of songs about guns, warfare and death is pretty effective. Not altogether original but that’s not the point. Invasion aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel, they’re trying to knock your friggin’ block off with their music. One of the things that normally sinks an album of blackened-death-thrash for me is the drum sound. If it sounds like the drummer is playing on a kit made of tin or plastic tubs, the album goes out the window. In this case, the drum sound is spot on. Huge double bass and blast beats, a snare that sounds like a snare and even the cymbals are just right. It’ll blow your hair back, if you’ve got any left.
‘Infinite Waves of Human Flesh’ kicks off with some great guitar squeals and overall the lead work of Nifelhenious is incredible. Speed and technicality tempered with an ear for the riff, the man can definitely shred. Of course Pleghm is no slouch on rhythm guitar either, his solid, machine like guitar work keeping everything together. The only (mildly) disappointing thing here is the bass tone as it blends in so well with the guitars that you almost can’t hear it, but there are moments when you can definitely feel it. Invasion don’t skip on melody either, check out ‘Devil’s Garden (Journey Through…), it slams into you like a Sherman Tank but you can still bang along and even hum the guitar parts. Well done!
As I said, the band isn’t going to get high points for originality, but they have the tone, the speed and the chops to blow away a lot of the competition. It took them 8 years to put out Orchestrated Kill Maneuver, but the wait was definitely worth it. Good thing too, at least you won’t be tired of the record before the next one comes out in 2018!
(Rotting Corpse)
Rating: 8.5
