I’ll be the first to admit that Turkey is not the place where the most inventive metal is coming from – if any generalisation is to be made, it would be that the metal from the cradle of civilisation is mediocre, derivative and steeped in clichés usually only found in countries that do their best at emulating Western styles. While it is hard to delve deeply into the Turkish metal underground from my distant vantage point of Western Australia, I’ll normally give anything that looks reasonable from the country a chance – it’s the least I can do for the blood in my veins. In terms of death metal, what is on offer? We have the horribly mediocre
Cenotaph, who though perhaps appealing to fans of the gore-entrenched brutal death genre, aren’t even too distinct within that genre itself.
Nettlethrone? While casually enjoyable, they’re essentially a B-grade American modern melodic-death clone. It might pay to mention
Carnophage here – the band’s output was somewhat in the right direction, and while enjoyable, was still not entirely convincing.
Burial Invocation is in fact made up of members from both Cenotaph and Nettlethrone, but it follows a notably different style of death metal – it’s becoming a theme in my death metal reviews of late, but anything that follows in the footsteps of
Incantation will always catch my interest. Burial Invocation are very much an Incantation clone, and while they follow the general Turkish trend of not being particularly original, they’re different from the aforementioned bands in the fact that their debut EP
Rituals of the Grotesque is a catchy and highly enjoyable slab of old school-styled death metal. As one of DC’s writers (King Cripple) in his recent review of a Diamanthian release states – ‘If a band can completely replicate or even surpass the best of another band I like, despite clearly no intentions of contributing an original thought, I will most likely enjoy what it is the band does’. Truer words could not be spoken regarding Burial Invocation – their style of dense and brutal-tinged death metal reeks of early greats Incantation and
Morpheus Descends, as well as falling in line with more recent formations of the style from the likes of
Dead Congregation or Incantation offshoots
Disciples of Mockery and
Disma.
While the music itself is pure joy for any death metal fan, its success is seemingly from the feeling one gets that the band members are enjoying themselves too – the music seems to reflect this ‘aura’ at all times. The riffs are all very well put together, seamlessly moving between frenetic death metal passages and crushing doom – the four songs all expound a remarkable level of cohesion. Mustafa of Nettlethrone’s vocals are remarkably low and guttural, far exceeding his work in Nettlethrone. As apocalyptic the riffs and music overall may be, his presence undoubtedly adds a whole new level of evil to the EP. And that’s the defining point of the EP and the band’s style – it’s not original, it’s definitely something we’ve heard before, but it’s done well, it sounds good and a single listen will show that the band is very genuine about their approach to this style of music. And isn’t that what really matters? The band obviously loves every minute of delving into satanic lore, and so am I. More material as soon as possible? I certainly hope so.
