Invidious - In Death

Invidious - In Death (Imperium Productions - MLP 2011)

I know what you're going to say now. "Fuck, another Swedish death metal band???!!" Yeap, but if you have got any problems with that, go and buy yourself Lady Gaga triple gatefold vinyl made of the shreds of her dresses and sprayed with menstrual blood of 666 virgins. I live with one rule - there's never enough of good music and so I welcome Invidious with the cup of beer in one hand and skull full of maggots in another. Besides, those lads aren't that new to the scene and some of you may remember them when they played under the name Katalysator, with which they have been raising the flag of old school death metal on two demos: "Zombie Destruction" and "Mass Genocide Ritual". They've switched the name for Invidious for some reason and now finally the debut MLP titled "In Death" has been unleashed upon the mankind and trust me, this is another deadly plague that you have to deal with. If not, they you will probably die in the most horrid pains. There're already many ulcers on your skin! The toxic death is getting near you, so be careful!

Musically and for their image Invidious has clearly been influenced by Repugnant, in my opinion. Of course the great old Swedish death metal scene as well as few American legends (Autopsy, Mantas, Possessed, Incubus, Necrovore... you know the litany) must have been the main source of influence for the whole plague and both Repugnant and Invidious successfully execute all necrophilia rituals, copulating with the old corpses. But when listening to "In Death" I simply have the same feeling and almost kind of deja-vu sense like if I was listening to "Hecatomb" or "Epitome of Darkness", really! There's not only similar, rotten and morbid atmosphere on those recordings, but also the sound - which is pretty raw and primitive, with almost punkish edge - and the riffing and vocals... They're all very similar to what you may know from Repugnant. Is it a big disadvantage of "In Death"? It depends how you look at it. Myself I'm not a guy, who expects every band to be fuck knows how original and inventive. In most of the cases, the old recipes work best. And that's exactly what I think about Invidious.

They more than good in what they do. Their songs are just great, with many memorable, damn catchy, but vicious and aggressive riffs, with only few slightly melodic parts, but mainly it's something focused on straight forward, simple, traditional kind of playing, which combines death metal with a small dose of thrash and even Bathory's "Bathory" type of black metal. Sounds pretty fuckin promising, doesn't it? And trust me, it does sound great, with such tracks as "Dead Salvation Spawn", which is the best one from the MLP (and also one, which fits such Repugnant anthems like “From Beyond the Grave”), but also "Throne of Death" (which has great melodic ending part) Invidious shows that there's great potential in this band and well, I can't wait for hear some stuff from them.

Uff... I've been quite mutilated by those four slabs, so I also recommend you all to check them out. Mind also that Invidious belongs to something called Uppsala Death Metal group, which includes also Graveless and Degial, and some members of Invidious play also in such bands as Ensnared (who are a continuation of Gravehammer, which I already featured with interview in my zine, check it here: http://panzerfaust666zine.blogspot.com/2011/09/gravehammer-swedish-and-morbid.html) and In Solitude, not to mention Gottfrid Åhman, who joined the ranks of reformed Repugnant. Watain is also from Upsala and Erik did the artwork for "In Death". Do they need any more recommendations then?

Final rate: 83 /100