W.T.C. PRODUCTIONS is proud to present CHAOS INVOCATION‘s highly anticipated fourth album, Devil, Stone & Man.
By now, CHAOS INVOCATION should require little introduction. Formed in 2004 and releasing three increasingly celebrated full-lengths via W.T.C., CHAOS INVOCATION have steadily become a pillar of Germany’s long-potent black metal underground. Their last album, 2018’s Reaping Season, Bloodshed Beyond, was an iron-fisted smash through more dynamic corridors, with their sinuous and serpentine black metal taking on a more heightened (but no less muscular) melodic aspect. As the world has fully turned to shit, CHAOS INVOCATION thus cover that iron fist with a grime unfathomably dark and dreadful. Indeed, Devil, Stone & Man is the record deserving of these times – or rather, vice versa.
Perhaps as a counterreaction or at least parallel development to that dynamic predecessor, Devil, Stone & Man is inarguably CHAOS INVOCATION’s most direct and aggressive album to date, and one give horrific power through its massive & molten production, which handily challenges those naysayers who claim true black metal can’t palatably possess “professional” recording. Its ultraviolence twists and turns but ever moves forward, downward, diving across dazzling depths and heights with the ease of masters. Truly, CHAOS INVOCATION’s already-sturdy songwriting has been given an uptick in detail and nuance here, sounding sweeping and ceremonial as it does teeth-gnashingly harsh and harrowing. A whirlwind, a vortex, both and beyond: CHAOS INVOCATION have been qualified as these before, but now one can add world-eating dreadnought to that list, as well, with Devil, Stone & Man.
It is worth mentioning that Chaos Invocation, a German entity, is a project that has been active since 2004 and brings a very peculiar brand that is to print a lot of personality to its Black Metal style.
If you like raw Black Metal, a Morbid Angel vibe and solos worthy of the greats of 80’s Thrash in raucous interludes, well, you can get an idea of what we have here. It’s like putting the best of Marduk, Morbid Angel and Slayer in a blender and extracting the essences.
The last release was 2018’s “Reaping Season, Bloodshed Beyond” and now we have the killer and morbid “Devil, Stone & Man” with a raw and well-crafted Black Metal with surgical guitars and a “Blessed Are the Sick” vibe from Morbid Angel and Mayhem. A debut in the 90’s. Slow and fast beats mix between the Euronymous riffs and all that 90’s aura that gave identity to an era.
just check out the opening of “Strike of the Dominator’s Fist” and then you already have a very interesting notion of the awesomeness of this album. One of the best of 2022 for sure. In “Diabolical Hammer” we have all the weight and strong guitars with demonic solos and interludes. A separate attraction. “Odonata Fields“, on the other hand, is cadenced and melodic with frightening vocals. A high point of the album.
I could comment on each track and its specifics, but I won’t because it’s so individual and personal to hear CHAOS INVOCATION that I’d prefer each of you to have your own auditory trajectory.
But I already advance: There are no defects in this album!
Gaze deeply into Devil, Stone & Man‘s stark cover artwork – courtesy of BMS Illustration – and one will begin to understand where CHAOS INVOCATION are coming from, and where they are going. Will you follow them to The End?
RATE: 666/666
