With oil spilling all over the place, high unemployment, useless wars and politicians being bought out by the very people who continue to cause all of these awful disasters, there certainly hasn’t been a shortage of things to be pissed off about. That being said, Dew-Scented’s Invocation could not have come at a more opportune moment. You know the kind of music that makes you squint your eyes and grit your teeth as you shake your head and yell “FUCK!” repeatedly? Well it’s just arrived, and it may finally be the album that will bring these pissed-off Germans out of obscurity. To all of those who may have overlooked Dew-Scented in the past or who are now reading about them for the first time, do yourselves a favor and spend the next forty-five minutes getting your asses kicked relentlessly by what will very bloody likely be one of the heaviest albums of the year.
From Invocation’s beginning to its very end, the double bass will make you feel as if a miniature version of Mike Tyson is pounding the living shit out of one of your eardrums like it’s a speed bag, while maximum chugging simultaneously blasts the other ear to bits like an all-out assault of mortars, hand grenades and Kalashnikovs. Dew-Scented has always been known to bring their unique blend of extremely loud and aggressive metal to the table, but this time they’ve practically done it flawlessly. Every single riff on this album is completely original, a difficult feat for a band that hasn’t changed their sound after eight albums. There is something respectable about a band that isn’t willing to compromise their uniqueness in order to sell more records. The eclectic mix of death and thrash metal along with straight-up hardcore vocals similar to The Hoods and late Agnostic Front (both of whom are quite popular in Germany) are proof that Dew-Scented does not really give a fuck what anyone thinks; they are going to play whatever the hell they feel like regardless of the confusion it might bring to fanatics of specific genres. Newer band members have tightened their sound since Incinerate, and solos such as the one in “Have No Mercy On Us” certainly do not leave the listener wanting. Although the consistency of Invocation prevents it from having any real stand-out tracks, the ferociousness of “Torn To Shreds,” which follows a necessary one-minute interlude that will help you catch your breath, revitalizes your anger in preparation for the entire second half of the album.
Invocation’s only downfall is that Soundlodge Studios did not give its recording the same type of care that went into the making of its songs, which is quite a letdown by both Metal Blade and Prosthetic Records. When listening to the album with good quality headphones, for example, one will easily notice something gnarly going on with the way the guitars come through the speakers, primarily during times of intense chugging. Assumably, the band wanted to alternate the two guitar tracks back and forth to give off some type of stereo effect, but it only makes the album sound choppy and unsynchronized. However, there is an easy way to alleviate this symptom. Surely everyone has a set of sub-par speakers that are still capable of producing very high volumes, such as the blown out ones in your Toyota or the shitty cone tweeters that came with your laptop from Best Buy. Just crank those bitches up as loud as they can go, and you’ll be off to the races with absolutely nothing to hinder you from destroying low-hanging ceiling fans and other assorted fixtures your landlord has hopefully long since forgotten about. Just do yourselves a favor and get a pair of gloves to go along with Invocation, because I’m already having trouble wiping my blood off the keyboard. “Prepare for Domination!“
