929. Killswitch Engage / Incarnate. 2016. 3/5

Another album that caught me by surprise by its release was this one. Disarm the Descent had been an album I enjoyed on its release, but it certainly fell from my listening favour after its newness had rubbed off, and I hadn't thought any more about Killswitch Engage from that moment on, until I found this in the new release racks. I got this along with a whole stack of other new releases from around the same time, so it took me some time to not only get into the album but to have it find its place amongst my current listening list. Part of that was from pretty much knowing what I would find once I put the album on, and part was whether or not I needed another KsE album in my collection.

The best songs here are the ones that just keep racing along, driven by the guitars and drums, and don't stop to change the tempo every couple of verses to allow a bit of the somewhat clichéd screaming metalcore growl to be the most overriding point of the song. "Until the Day" is the best example of the good side of this statement.
The middle section of songs are those mostly typical of Killswitch Engage. Those that start off at that fast tempo and aggression, but have the pieces in the middle where that tempo does step back a tad where the vocals mull over the top of the music, and yet pick up again for the guitars and drums to take centre stage again. The opening tracks "Alone I Stand" and "Hate By Design" kickstart the album in this vein, and by default drag you in with air guitar and drumming flying in precision with the songs.
The drop back in tempo, emphasising the clear guitar in the middle and using a more melancholic atmosphere in "It Falls on Me" is an example of the side of the band that I could see a lot less of. "We Carry On" doesn't quite attract my ire as much as "It Falls on Me", in that the tempo of this song does not change throughout, the guitars and drums chug along in the same riff and beat for the entire three and a half minutes, while Jesse pretty much sings without the scream all the way through, which is an unusual occurrence. "Ascension" then does a similar music theme, with a growing aggression in vocals and instrumentation, but does tend to borrow heavily from the previously mentioned songs. I understand the ability to project heaviness by playing in a hard fashion at a slower speed to try and emphasise this heaviness, but I find this becomes... well... boring after awhile. "Cut Me Loose" almost sounds like Alice in Chains in places. Drowning people to sleep with slow heavy beats.

I find I have mixed reactions over Incarnate. Whereas the band still sounds absolutely fantastic, and their precision is second to none, the songs themselves just reek too much of coming from a conveyor belt of similarity. The imprint seems to have become the template, and most of the tracks here seem to follow it almost to the letter. I have trouble distinguishing one song from the next, while the songs on the back half of the album don't grab me at all. Despite these thoughts, there are undeniable catchy elements throughout which will please long time fans of the band, if not satisfy them completely.

Rating:  "We keep this path alive. Never break the ties".   3/5