When I was offered this CD to review I took it without any hesitation whatsoever. Not because I thought it would necessarily be to my musical taste but because I was genuinely intrigued to see how it had turned out. You see, Incite are a band that have been on my horizons for quite a while now and chances are they have been on yours too even if it isn’t immediately evident how or indeed why. It seems, to me at least, that I have had them rammed down my throat at every available opportunity for the best part of a year now. For the last few weeks I have been bombarded, sometimes several times a day, with Myspace bulletins from Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy imploring me to check out the imminent release of Incite’s debut album ‘The Slaughter.’ Anyone who saw Soulfly at a summer festival this year will more than likely remember Max inviting ‘Richie from Incite’ up on stage at some point to either sing or play drums with him, I know that it happened at all the festivals I saw them perform this year across Europe. Even before that they were the unsigned band who rather surprisingly at the time were the main touring partner on Soulfly’s 57 date run through Europe in support of their latest offering ‘Conquer.’ However, when you consider that the vocalists surname is Cavalera then perhaps it’s not that surprising after all?

From the age of 5 my own father would regularly take me to work with him on a Saturday morning. Even today I suspect this is a scenario that is repeated up and down the country and across the world. Getting up early, having breakfast at a cafe in town, catching two buses to work and then being his helper for a few hours was a real adventure at the time as I recall. He was the head groundsman at Nottingham University and although I enjoyed my time with him it never inspired me to want to make my living marking out running tracks, cricket wickets or rugby pitches. Still, I guess when your father is a heavy metal singer of some renown it’s always more likely that you would want to follow his career path. After all who can deny that guitars and tour buses are more exciting than hedge trimmers and lawnmowers eh? It does however raise all sorts of questions as to what level of input and help he should afford you and raises doubts amongst the more cynical of us about the organic nature of a bands development? We all know that in this business its often who you know rather than what you know but should it really be this blatant?

The Incite bio states that they were formed by Richie Cavalera in 2004 and that they have worked hard to become an innovative new band in the metal scene. No doubt they have worked hard but it would be criminal not to acknowledge that they have also been afforded huge opportunities that other young metal bands starting out could only dream of. I seriously doubt there is another band out there today who could lay claim to being taken on a 22 date tour of the USA within months of forming by a band of Soulfly’s stature. Or indeed of being taken on 20 dates in 2006, 47 dates in 2008 and a 57 date European tour in 2009. And all of this before even inking a record deal. In a world where the tour buy on is the norm even for more established bands it also makes you wonder how they could afford it? Then you have literally dozens of festival appearances over a number of years where Richie has been called upon to sing with Max for Soulfly or Cavalera Conspiracy and it adds up to the fact he’s probably shared the same stage as his well known father in excess of 200 times. Excellent exposure for an unknown singer heading an unsigned band I’m sure you’ll agree. Throw in the fact that his mother manages both bands and the recent Myspace marketing campaign by the Cavalera Tribe and what you have is probably the longest and greatest promotional launch for a young band’s debut release in metal history. Still, it has to be said that any questions surrounding the issues of nepotism and not deserving such a relatively high profile for so young a band will be quickly forgotten if this is a release that commands my attention.

So the only question that really matters is this: did ‘The Slaughter’ Incite me to take an interest in the bands future releases or is it just the ultimate Cavalera Conspiracy? Well, the album has decent production and the boys can obviously play their instruments but for me it never rises above being representative of the great mass of American metal produced today. It’s all hybrid thrash/hardcore vocal delivery over super fast drumming and machine gun guitar riffage with obligatory breakdowns thrown in for mid gig moshing. And as such it falls far short of being called innovative or genre leading as the band claim in their bio. It has immediacy but lacks longevity. In my opinion what sets great metal bands apart from good ones and bands with potential apart from bands wasting their time are the peaks and troughs of creativity contained within their basic core sound. I don’t think musical ability or experience generally comes into the equation. You either have the ability to weave tangents of beauty and brutality through your songs or you don’t and unfortunately on this evidence Incite don’t. After an intro that could only be described as pointless, the remaining 11 tracks are as close to a flatline on a life support machine as you’ll get in terms of variation. Despite this certain songs do poke their heads above the morass for different reasons, such as ‘Army of Darkness’ which starts with an intro that is just a faster rip off of the main riff to Soulfly’s ‘Living Sacrifice’, ‘Time for a Change’ and ‘Die With What You’ve Done’ which display a touch more melody than is generally the norm and the vocal performance on ‘Down and Out’ which puts me in mind of, you guessed it, Max Cavalera. Above all what I think this release highlights for me is the discrepancy between Incites’ performances on stage and record. However, given the huge number of gigs played in contrast to the relatively few songs they have written it is perhaps understandable at this juncture that they have weaker songs than their stage presence demands. I guess only time will tell whether they can catch up and become the band they hope to be?

http://www.myspace.com/incite1
http://www.inciteband.com

Rich Lawson

MTUK HOME