Invocator - Excursion Demise (1991)

Artillery may be the central legend of Danish thrash in the 80s, but they weren't the only band there kicking ass and taking names. Invocator performed in a relentless, technical style with angry vocals reminiscent of Ron Rinehart's style on Dark Angel's Leave Scars. There's also a slight edge of death metal to be heard.

Excursion Demise was their debut album and one of their best. It's pretty much pure energy from beginning to end. The title track blares forth after a brief intro, weaving a web of bewildering speed and precision mutes. The brief acoustic interlude "(...To a Twisted Recess of Mind)" leads into the charging thrash of "Forsaken Ones". Some other great tracks on the album include "Absurd Temptation", the raucous "Schismatic Injective Therapy" and the raging "Beyond Insufferable Democracy", but there is nothing here that will bore you if you favor their brand of twisted tech speed metal.

Although the heady song titles might imply this is some album full of pseudo-intellectual bullshit, the lyrics speak otherwise, as they are quite good.

Devoid seeking human quality, that seems lacking in our excursion
burning waters, fervent pain, mirrors screaming, dark reproach
Words that you speak leave a trembling fear in me
emersion of shallows sympathy, forsaken souls now will fall as one
dementia, never saw the sun

As solid as this album was on the whole, few of the tracks were truly catchy. It sounded great, the musicians were on par with almost anything else coming out of European thrash, and they were not short on riffs, but unfortunately none of these riffs were of the 'to die for' variety. Basically the style is a hyper version of the Bay Area sound with a dash of prototypical death metal. I will still play this album from time to time as it's good enough for its day, but it does lack the songwriting which turned other technical speed metal records like By Inheritance and Deception Ignored into such memorable efforts. However, if you are into obscure and riffy thrash metal of the 80s and 90s, this is well worth tracking down, as is the follow-up Weave the Apocalypse.

Also, want to buy more mind flayers on album covers...mind flayers = sex.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (twisted eyes crying for the end)

http://www.invocator.com/