Incarnadine - Demo 2006
Self-released
Dark Power Metal
4 songs (26'12")
Release year: 2006
Incarnadine
Reviewed by Alex

According to many bands’ experience metal is really popular in South America. The arenas and clubs are full, the fans are enthusiastic. Some of them even venture out and start their own bands. That seems to be the case with Incarnadine, the first band from Argentina I have been introduced to (not counting Beto Vazquez and his evershifting crew).

Trying to carve the niche and avoid trends, Incarnadine play power metal with a darker, almost vampiric twist, just witness the cover art to reinforce the point. The main songstress/dark sorceress for Incarnadine is Karen Sudnius. Knowing where their strengths and uniqueness lie, the band does not hesitate to afford Karen the top of the podium, her voice dominating the mix. If you like your clean female vocals lower and chesty, Karen is your gal. Reminiscent of Johanna Depierre (Amaran) and Federica De Boni (White Skull), Karen mostly invokes the memories of Dark Moor’s humble beginnings and Elisa Martin with her distinct Spanish accent. I only wish Karen would let loose a little more and stretch herself, like she does at the beginning of Drums in the Night. Her duets with clean male backing vocals are quite interesting, but some esoteric male guttural vocals seem out of place on this demo. Check with Epica and early After Forever for a good interplay on that front.

Incarnadine guitarists certainly can play. Their chops are darker Iced Earth (especially in the instrumental portion of Medea and Odin’s Wildlife), and somebody here is quite in love with long and wandering solos, but I’d rather the band elaborated more on the epic heroic melody riff in Drums in the Night or a quick Celtic melody at the beginning of Odin’s Wildlife. As any young band, once Incarnadine is in the groove with a certain part of the song they are rolling, but switching between beats, transitioning from one part of the song to another needs refinement, and that will come as their songwriting expertise develops.

A good producer can push Karen’s limits and correct some out of tune moments between her voice and guitars on Medea, but Incarnadine’s rhythm section will require more work. Enrique Losada’s drums are not the tightest, he is the one who has the most trouble changing rhythmically and his tom rolls sound like a tall stack of heavy boxes falling down uncontrollably in the poorly maintained warehouse.

If the band were to listen to me, which by no means they should, the part I liked the most were the melodic scales exiting Medea and entering Drums in the Night, with the strong double bass portion to follow, cool chorus duet, Karen to get stronger in her delivery and rhythm guitars hacking along. If most of this demo was like that I would have predicted a brighter future. Yet, as I mentioned above, listening to my conjectures is not an obligation.

Killing Songs :
Drums in the Night
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