Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Incubation
Label: Self-released
Release date: year_month
Runtime: 38:49
Rating: 3.5/5
If the info on the metal encyclopedia Encyclopaedia Metallum is right, the Slovenian death metal outfit Incubation formed in 2000, went on a three-year break somewhere along the way, and came back to life eight years ago. It took just as long for the trio to give birth to their studio debut this April, the misanthropically titled Human Anomaly.
On it, Boštjan Ivančić (drums, guitar), Dejan Kozlevčar (vocals, guitar) and Sebastjan Skupek (bass) tackle their own take on death metal, wedged somewhere between old-school 90s Tampa Bay death metal and a slightly more modern strain that bubbles up mostly thanks to the frequent melodic guitar work. You can definitely hear that the album took a full three years to record, since in places the material comes off pretty schizophrenic and the record often loses its red thread, but Human Anomaly still has some seriously strong moments.
If anything, Human Anomaly is a varied and dynamic record, with songs that are quite diverse. On one side you get fast, almost thrashy moments like Terrorist, a proper war march, and on the other slower, fat, almost groovy elements that dominate tracks like the longest one, Soul Eater. The harmonic-sounding intro gives the excellent Confused And Abused an epic touch, while the closing Anomaly is a psychotic freak-out you’d sooner expect from someone like Mike Patton than on a death metal album. And finally, Human Anomaly also has moments that show Incubation deserve a lot more attention than they get. One of those is arguably the album’s best track, Stillborn, which stands out with great riffing, a skillful interplay of guitar lines and vocals, superb build-up and cleverly placed, melancholic-sounding acoustic passages.
But it’s precisely this excessive diversity that is also the debut’s biggest flaw, one that badly needed more consistent material. Incubation also stumble a bit on the sonic side: the production is far from what it should be, especially the drums, which are otherwise very colorful, and above all Dejan’s specific guttural growl is something you have to get used to.
Human Anomaly is a good debut, though one that very much feels like exactly that: the first studio attempt of an otherwise experienced band. It’s a mix of very good material on one hand and somewhat less convincing material on the other, but it’s still a varied piece in the colorful mosaic of the Slovenian metal scene. And Incubation definitely manage to drive home the point that humanity on this planet is nothing more than an anomaly that will sooner or later bring about its own (self-)destruction. The only question is how long this incubation period will last.
Lineup
Boštjan Invančić – drums, guitar
Dejan Kozlevčar – vocals, guitar
Sebastjan Skupek – bass
Gorazd Maček – solo (Polluted Minds)
Vasja Škerjanec – additional vocals (Squealing Pigs, Human Machine)
Production
Incubation
Tracklist
1. Polluted Minds
2. Terrorist
3. Confused And Abused
4. Squealing Pigs
5. Soul Eater
6. Still Born
7. Human Machine
8. Jesus Christ
9. Anomaly
