Dew-Scented are one of those bands that I feel I should be raving about, but for whatever reason I’ve never made it past casual fan status. They’re brand of modern death/thrash should be right up my alley, sharing many similarities to bands I love such as The Crown or Hatesphere, but I can’t quite pinpoint what it is that keeps me from returning. I’ve enjoyed each new album to some degree, giving it a handful or two of spins, then putting it aside, forgotten. New slab Invocation looks to be no different, despite a fairly impressive selection of riffs and general ass kicking.

Keeping with their tradition of album titles starting with the letter ‘I’, Invocation opens with a short acoustic instrumental that seemingly has nothing in common with the rest of the album. I’ve never understood the need for things like this, but whatever. From here, they promptly launch into their mostly blistering, sometimes grooving, death laced thrashing full of fleet fingered solos, booming double bass and dry, raspy barks. This is where their biggest drawback resides – after a few songs, it all turns into a blind mush of samey material – the songs don’t have enough differentiating them from one another to stand on their own. In an attempt to break things up a bit, they included one of those short mid album interludes, this time a much more melodic and anthemic sounding piece that recalls recent Kreator. It would’ve worked much better as a full song I think, but a tease is all we get.

None-the-less, the album is not without a couple moments that brought me out of my stupor to full attention. Early tracks “Arise and Decay” and “The Invocation” work well to get the blood pumping and the head banging. A couple tracks later we get a killer main riff in “Condemnation” which put my horns in the air, likewise with “Revel in Contempt” a bit further down the line.

Invocation is by no means a bad album, but it’s not gonna set the thrash world on fire either. It’s one of those enjoyable if unspectacular albums you can put of with a group of friends while knocking back some suds to mindlessly bang your head around to without putting much thought into it. Decent but non-essential.

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