Eternal Funeral Trance

Incursus come from the U.S.A. and it is the main band of VJS, known by his contribution to many and well known bands such as Crimson Moon, Demoncy, Kult ov Azazel etc. Incursus consist of two members, VJS who plays all the instruments and Horidus on vocals, they were formed in 2005 and they have released an EP in 2005 and the full length album “Eternal Funeral Trance” in 2009. The album contains six Black Metal tracks, one intro and one ambient track, of forty five minutes of duration. Black Metal that we ’ll find in this album, is difficult to be assigned to a specific sound as, with careful listens, you recognize quite many different styles combined together in a quite creative and interesting way. The main element of the album comes from the French sound and more specifically they reminded me of Deathspell Omega, with the frozen, harsh sound of Scandinavia as also with some quite many majestic parts.

The riffs are fast and straightforward with few but intense, slow, disharmonic passages and interesting majestic parts. Although the tracks are quite big, about five minutes long, their structure is very good so as to catch and keep the listeners’ attention. The guitars are the instruments that dominate the compositions. They are distorted, with clean sound and played with passion and quality. The bass and the drums play a secondary role in the sound. The drums are well played with interesting lines and nice slow passages, whereas the bass is hardly heard. The vocals are whispering Black Metal vocals that remind me a lot of Demoncy’s vocals concerning both the tone and the technique. I don’t think that this similarity is a disadvantage as the vocals fits to the style of the compositions although they lack of originality.

The production would want to be clean but the result is not so good because the sound comes out flat and quite blurry. The mix may also be responsible for sound’s quality because it has highlighted the guitars but without taking care of the bass and the drums at all, the sound of which is tangled and becomes dirty so that there are parts that you can’t understand their lines. The lyrics, if I’m not wrong, are written in English but they are not contained in the promo that the label sent me, so I don’t know what they deal with.

Generally Incursus have created a mentionable album with addictive riffing and very interesting sound. The problem of the sound is important but even with that the album can offer to the listener and up to a level it is enjoyable. I believe that for the work that has been done on the guitars and generally the compositions, it worth you check it out, especially those who listen to the sound I mentioned before.