We don’t hear much metal from the Eastern European countries all that often. Coming out of Turkey, Burial Invocation is one of the rare instances where we do hear something. And guess what? It’s death metal. Tried and true, shredding death metal, it just goes to show that even in the most extreme of metal genres, we can get over the hurdle of language barriers with blast beats and tremolo picking.
Abiogenesis is Burial Invocation’s first full length album, coming after an EP, a split, and the band breaking up and reforming again. Technically it’s been seven years since Burial Invocation have released anything, so there’s been a lot of time to change and evolve as a band. Things have definitely changed, too. As the songs are all now 8+ minutes long and feel very Americanized, the band could very well fit into the death metal scenes overseas. There’s even a general Incantation-influence in these songs, and to know that one of my favorite death metal act’s influence goes that far is heartwarming, to say the least.
Burial Invocation hit a snag, however, and it’s an apparent problem throughout the album’s run time. The band have it all: good production, good musicians, and a good sound to go with it, too. It’s the simple fact that the band don’t exactly know when to end their songs properly, and as a result it feels like many tracks could have been cut down to make them more impactful. The band do their best to break up the songs into moments by changing tempos and incorporating doom influences here and there to slow things down briefly, but then it’s another riff following that, another to carry the song on for another four minutes.
The title track of Abiogenesis is a great example to look at for this: Up until the 7 minute mark, the song seems to be winding down, yet in the next 60 seconds you’re cycling through tempos drops and accelerations back to blistering blast beats and wildly chaotic guitar solos. To be fair, it feels like the band had really solid and tasty riffs and solos to play, and decided to stitch them onto the songs to have an excess amount of crazy passages. I get to the 10 minute mark and though there are two minutes left in the title track, I’m already tuning out and waiting for the next one to commence. The sound itself is great, yet this approach to death metal cannot seem to sustain itself for so long. “Visions of the Hereafter” and “Phantasmagoric Transcendence” fare better than the title track, but still feel like certain moments and riffs could have been cut to give the strongest of the bunch more time to shine.
Even still, the production and performances on this album are rock solid all around. Drummer Aberrant is a literal machine, probably faster than most drum machines, while vocalist Cihan Akün could very well fill in the shoes of John McEntee in Incantation if he so wishes to become strictly guitar once more. Burial Invocation are a talented bunch of guys, and I know damn well that they’d do well on American soil. All solos are beautifully constructed and wildly chaotic, wheras they interweave seamlessly from part to part without much wavering. Think solos in the vein of Immolation done over filthy Incantation-esque passages. It’s gnarly as hell.
So despite structural and writing problems, Burial Invocation are very much tried and true death metal with truly great moments in there. The songs go on for too long and there are sections that feel unnecessary, but when this band brings the best they’re capable of, boy do they bring it. Though I do have my criticisms, I’m very curious as to where Burial Invocation takes things from here. Abiogenesis is a very jam-packed record for four songs and an outro, but anyone who wants a lot of death metal from somewhere don’t typically get music from, this will undoubtedly do.
Abiogenesis is available everywhere on July 6th through Dark Descent Records. You can stream “Phantasmagoric Transcendence” below.
