CHAOS INVOCATION - IN BLOODLINE WITH THE SNAKE CD

Bending the conundrum between aggression, darkness and melody is what the very best black metal bands do. The term melodic black metal is a misnomer to me, because unlike melodic death metal, there is no real dividing line between what makes a black metal band want to express melody or flat, raw nihilism. One moment, a band can forge a riff that sounds like the Earth splitting in two, and the next, they can meld together a soft female voice with an epic, atmospheric score. Diehard fans of black metal will call their beloved sub-genre the most artistic of the bunch, and with some of the material coming out these days, itʼs hard to deny that argument. One such band, Germanyʼs Chaos Invocation remains quite underground, but they “get it.”

Chaos Invocation, on their debut album In Bloodline With the Snake, do not settle on the atmospheric embodiment of a latter day Bathory or Burzum, instead they focus on the ferocity of the riff entombed in a sarcophagus of melody which expresses a, dare I say, beautiful atmospheric quality that isnʼt designed to be a grand standing broad stroke ala Dimmu Borgir.
There is little to fault Chaos Invocation on, except that maybe they can get a little tedious when one listens to In blooding With the Snake all the way through, but its really not that big of a deal and doesnʼt detract from the album all that much. This isnʼt the best black metal album of the year 2009, but it certainly holds true to the basic tenets of what this music could and should be. Black fans will surely revel in this bit of Germanic blackness.