Chaos Invocation - Devil, Stone & Man LP

CHAOS INVOCATION should require little introduction. Formed in 2004 and releasing three increasingly celebrated full-lengths via W.T.C., CHAOS INVOCATION have steadily become a pillar of Germany's long-potent black metal underground. Their last album, 2018's Reaping Season, Bloodshed Beyond, was an iron-fisted smash through more dynamic corridors, with their sinuous and serpentine black metal taking on a more heightened (but no less muscular) melodic aspect. As the world has fully turned to shit, CHAOS INVOCATION thus cover that iron fist with a grime unfathomably dark and dreadful. Indeed, Devil, Stone & Man is the record deserving of these times - or rather, vice versa.

Perhaps as a counterreaction or at least parallel development to that dynamic predecessor, Devil, Stone & Man is inarguably CHAOS INVOCATION's most direct and aggressive album to date, and one give horrific power through its massive & molten production, which handily challenges those naysayers who claim true black metal can't palatably possess "professional" recording. Its ultraviolence twists and turns but ever moves forward, downward, diving across dazzling depths and heights with the ease of masters. Truly, CHAOS INVOCATION's already-sturdy songwriting has been given an uptick in detail and nuance here, sounding sweeping and ceremonial as it does teeth-gnashingly harsh and harrowing. A whirlwind, a vortex, both and beyond: CHAOS INVOCATION have been qualified as these before, but now one can add world-eating dreadnought to that list, as well, with Devil, Stone & Man.

Gaze deeply into Devil, Stone & Man's stark cover artwork - courtesy of BMS Illustration - and one will begin to understand where CHAOS INVOCATION are coming from, and where they are going. Will you follow them to The End?

1. Strike of the Dominator's Fist 03:36  
2. A Stranger's Pale Hand 06:01  
3. Diabolical Hammer 05:12  
4. Odonata Fields 05:05  
5. Where We Have Taken the Cross 05:58  
6. Triple Fire 04:23  
7. Curses upon You 04:21  
8. The Revolting Abyss 05:37  
9. Sacrifices 04:01   instrumental
playing time 44:14