Review by Sonny for Incantation - Diabolical Conquest (1998)

I am far from any great authority on death metal, there are huge swathes of releases I am not that keen on, it's obsession with brutality, coupled with some of the more distasteful imagery and at the other end of the spectrum, the constipation of technically obsessed DM leaves me mostly unimpressed. I do love a good old-school release however, in the vein of Autopsy, Morbid Angel and the like. I've paid scant attention to Incantation previously, only having heard their debut and their latest albums before (both of which I did enjoy). So I went into this expecting something pretty decent, but man, this is earth-shatteringly brilliant death metal of a kind I hear too infrequently. It takes the OSDM sound and couples it with more ambitious songwriting that involves multiple changes in tempo during each track from battering brutality, through medium-paced riff-fests to death doom crawls. The vocals are archetypal abyssal growls that have, presumably, helped to define what a death metal singer should sound like, the guitars have a perfect filthy solidity to their tone that buzz and batter like a chainsaw crossed with a sledgehammer. The one thing that really stood out for me though, was the supergnarly bass sound. That growling bass guitar during Ethereal Misery is absolutely insane and has got to be one of my favourite pieces of basswork ever. All this is before we even get to the sixteen minute closing epic, Unto Infinite Twilight / Majesty of Infernal Damnation, a proggy (in a good way), sixteen minute death metal saga that doesn't try to impress with technical flashiness, but rather the quality of the songwriting and the searing intensity of the bands performance. I'm also guessing here that this track was a big influence on Blood Incantation and their similar epic on their Hidden History of the Human Race album (another DM fave of mine coincidentally).
I love it when an album comes out of nowhere and grabs me by the throat like Diabolical Conquest has done. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and, even after only a couple of listens, I reckon this is a five star classic and one of my all-time favourite death metal albums.