Having established themselves as a cut above the deathcore pack with 2010’s Contagion, Incisions is another imperious hammer-blow of ugly, brutal metal stripped down to its most basic components – but with added brains to match Oceano’s brawn.
The grim Eternal Wasteland’s ponderous riffs and Adam Warren’s guttural vocals set out the template, but when Slow Murder rumbles in like Gojira being slowly crushed into nothingness, it’s clear this is more than just meat’n’potatoes grunts and riffs. Blasphemous Mask’s oppressive grind keeps you guessing, so that when the beatdowns are unveiled they sound monstrous, not least on Severed Appendages.
It’s not just an exercise is upping the heaviness. The chilling Embrace Nothingness’s glacial pace and gothic lead breaks show the band is well-versed in DM’s atmospheric tradition, while the title track even has clean vocals, albeit conveying a sense of eerie despair. There’s even room for the regal instrumental, Disseverance. Oceano have again proved that this much-maligned strand of extreme metal can be inventive as well as unfathomably heavy.
