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Incantation is a band that is considered one of the leaders in the death metal underground and for good reason. They have been releasing quality albums for a decade now and show no signs of slowing down or turning to a more "commercial" appeal.

The new album, "Blasphemy" continues in the tradition of some of the best brutal death metal out there right now. The focus for the band is still on the speed and technicality side of death metal with blast beats being the order of the day. One of the most impressive things on the album for me was the guitar work. It is not that the riffs or leads are brilliant but rather how clean they are played. With this type of speed guitars often time start to sound fuzzy and hard to distinguish but this is not the case here. They are all very clearly played and this really helps the overall effect of the music. Vocally the album is exactly what you would expect from this style of music…no better, no worse. The low growling style does fit this music really well but like most vocalists in this genre there aren’t really any factors that make one better than another.

The album as a whole is very good and exactly what fans of the band would expect so you may be wondering why the rating is as low as it is. I was going to give this album a rating of 4 out of 5 but then I got to track 13 entitled "Outro". That is where my largest pet peeve in music is showcased….time wasting. Track 13 is about 15 minutes of silence and then 5 minutes of noise to end the disc. I have only one question and it is not only for this album but every album and every band that does this crap. WHY??? Does it add to the overall effect of the album? Does it make the album better in any way, shape or form? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! This is simply annoying and every time I run into this it annoys me even more. Fans of metal music buy albums from bands they like or bands they have heard good things about. I have listened to and talked with friends about metal for about 20 years now and I have never personally or even remotely heard of anyone buying an album because it has this "really cool silence/hidden track/waste of time" at the end. Trust me when I say this is not a good selling point. I know I may be coming of as a bit harsh since I actually do like this album quite a bit but you can not imagine how ultimately annoying I find this practice. From this point on any band I review will lose 1.5 points off the total straight off the top for doing this crap and I will mention the approximate time wasted on this "lack of judgment" track.

Overall an album that is a continuation on the Incantation catalogue of quality music and hopefully the time wasting crap will not annoy you as much as it did me… :)