REVIEW: Invoker – Digression [Single/2014]
Artist: Invoker
Single: Digression
Slowly, painfully, your mind is torn from your body. You can feel your sanity forking off in two directions—one half continuing along the straight and narrow path ahead of you, while the other half is dragged downwards through the earth’s crust, past physical firmament and into Hell. This is “Digression,” the latest and greatest single from North Carolina’s finest in heavy, groovy beatdown-tinted deathcore, Invoker. Packed with dense, bone-splintering heaviness and riffs that slam and groove for eons, “Digression” is an experience that will tear the listener’s mind out of their head and wring it clean of every drop of sanity there is to be had.
“Digression” kicks off like a punch to the jaw. Intense, pummeling percussion bludgeons the listener with no warning—while hate-filled and low, growled vocals roar overtop. While the meaty kick drum and looming, pounding toms break the listener’s facial bones into pieces, the guitar oscillates between a sharp, lacerating lead and a beefy, bewilderingly heavy chug that tears and melts at the protective flesh covering the listener’s skull. Devastating and crushing as Invoker’s instrumental attack is, however, it isn’t until the appearance of Traitors’ Tyler Shelton that “Digression” is truly successful in reaching within the listener’s mind and tearing out their sanity. Pseudo-squealed, deep, breaching vocals combine with the native husky, meaty growls of John Rabb and Dustin Mitchell to create a vortex of pure fury, shredding the listener’s ability to perform even basic cognitive function into shreds. While this vocal assault continues throughout the track—whether Shelton is lending his expertise or not—the musicianship continues to be at the absolute peak of what the genre has to offer. The guitar ranges from groovy, riff-laden crunchiness to intense, belligerent brutality that hits the listener like a freight train but lingers over them like a steamroller. After all is said and done, while “Digression” is just under four minutes long, it gifts the listener with an entire lifetime of heaviness and hatred.
I’m willing to bet you don’t want to truly experience what it’s like to have your sanity separated from your earthly being—to watch as the essence of your human soul seeps downwards into the murk and misery of Hell. However, even as Invoker’s “Digression” does just that, it does so in a way that provides nothing but the purest form of enjoyment for the listener. Deep, perfectly played and mixed instrumentation clashes with the best vocal efforts the genre has to offer, resulting in an immersive, intense experience any fan of heavy music will want to endure.
5/5
For Fans Of: Traitors, Towers, Immoralist, Sworn In, Thy Art is Murder
By: Connor Welsh