Killswitch Engage - Incarnate

Published March 04 2016

*=Staff's pick	Alone I Stand* Hate By Design* Cut Me Loose Strength Of The Mind Just Let Go Embrace The Journey...Upraised Quiet Distress Until The Day* It Falls On Me The Great Deceit* We Carry On Ascension

Genre	Metalcore/Heavy Metal	Jesse Leach	Vocals
Tracks	12	Adam Dutkiewicz	Guitar
Running time	44 Min.	Joel Stroetzel	Guitar
Label	Roadrunner Records	Mike D'Antonio	Bass
Release	March 11, 2016	Justin Foley	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Adam Dutkiewicz
Similar artists	---

I can't say that Killswitch Engage's new effort Incarnate, as a whole, contains any significant difference to the group's last album Disarm The Descent. What's mainly still being presented is metalcore with clear elements of heavy metal and as usual the vocals continuously alternate between a clean respectively an aggressive performance.

It's simply put a new record without any noteworthy moments of surprise, but I also believe that the fans in general don't want to have any major changes in the band's music for that matter. Greater innovation, transformation or suddenly coming out groundbreaking at this point could even do serious harm to this unit in the end, I think.

The music is naturally heavy for the most part, but sometimes, to sort of feed the album's diversity, the band throws in a little bit softer sections, although those sections never get to the point of being mellow or too light. The guitar playing is, unsurprisingly, put together by heavy riffs and quite a few harmony parts and the drum playing is, just as unsurprisingly, kind of hefty and somewhat crushing.

I think that Jesse Leach is able to take his vocal parts one step further up the stairs in comparison to the previous album. Maybe because he now feels more comfortable with his role in the band than what he did on the last record, which in fact was his first solid work together with the other guys in almost 11 years.

This band has the ability to, out of this intense music, put forward great moments musically, with attractive plays, striking vocal lines and a lot of captivating melodies, and with all these features put together you probably see the reason to why I think that Killswitch Engage is one of few bands out of this type of music that I find worth spending quite a lot time listening to.

See also review of: Disarm The Descent
See also: interview with Jesse Leach

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	7	8	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Tobbe