Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Incantation - Onward to Golgotha (1992)

Incantation's debut album is probably one of my more under-appreciated death metal albums when looking at the real "classics" of the genre.  As Ben alluded to in his review, there's some elements of inaccessibility to contend with at first but once you get a few spins under your belt things really start to embed in the old memory banks.  It is an album that crawls and races in equal portions is how I best describe the experience.  The pace is varied but the sound is always heavy and unrelenting.

For a band just three years into their existence, Incantation manged a debut in 1992 that was the embodiment of death metal.  Oppressive, dark, unapologetic and extreme in every sense of the word, the liner notes on the CD booklet took the opportunity in the "Thank You" section to say "Thank you all.  Disciples of Blasphemy, together we forever reign in darkness, as our souls roam horizons lost, we indulge in spiritual Desire!"  If you're a death metal fan, those words invoke sufficient levels of nefarious excitement in you to be forever an advocate of Incantation from the off, lost in the allure of the darkness they conjure over the course of Onward to Golgotha.

It's straight into a frenzied pace from the second the album begins and as I say it will take some degree of concentration to follow the record over the 11 tracks.  Along the way you will get to the death/doom blend that many subsequent bands have replicated over the years (I mean Incantation must be the most copied band in the history of music) as Pillard and McEntee riff the very flesh from your bones.  The drums of Jim Roe and the bass of Ronny Deo the perfect backdrop to the soundtrack to the sound of the apocalypse.

As a foundation stone, the debut record sets out Incantation's stall perfectly.  What has followed since on subsequent releases has been consistent with the promise that the first offering showed in piles.  Incantation have always been death metal and  after twelve full-lengths, numerous EP's and live releases the band have never once strayed  away from their relentless style.