Ingested’s reign over UK extreme metal has spanned over a decade and a half and continues with their latest effort ‘Ashes Lie Still’. One thing is without question, the 3-piece are just as angry, heavy and iconic as ever.
The developing sound that Ingested have grown into through their slam-infused roots and death metal elements has been precision engineered in this, their sixth album. From the get-go, the title track feeds the listener the lacerating guitar tone and unmistakable vocals that have made the band so infamous for years, but with the addition of Julia Frau’s ethereal backing vocals to compliment the demonic chugging. ‘You’ll Never Learn’ oozes mechanistic groove and slamming riff work with machinegun drumming by Jeff Lyn to orchestrate the brutality in a track that creates an atmosphere if violent intent. This transitions to a far eerier intro to ‘Tides of Glass’ before Sean Hynes guitar signals the incoming storm of stabbing instrumentals and huge vocals. The fight riffs come in throes throughout this album and are expertly punctuated with more refined instrumentals to keep each element of the songs sounding relevant and never overused.
The features on this album are star studded – with Sven De Caluwe of Aborted featuring on the fifth track ‘From Hollow Words’ which engages the higher gears with speed and marching rhythm, complimented by the back-and-forth between Jason Evans and De Caluwe. The vocals In this song are especially acidic, every syllable has pertinence and power in creating the overall sound of the track – an important feat to note in a genre that can often do vocals very wrong. ‘Sea Of Stone’ implements more technical guitar juxtaposed with neanderthal level slam riffs to crush some skulls to, harking back to previous Ingested work like ‘The Level Above Human’. Matt Heafy of Trivium steps up to play his part on ‘All I’ve Lost’, adding a vocal style very different to that which we’ve come to associate with Ingested. It’s a unique addition in a track that stands out in how different it iss to their classic sound, but serves to prove that the bruisers are not one-trick ponies and are able to craft huge melodies too.
The home stretch begins by delivering a contender for riff of the album 30 seconds into ‘With Broken Wings’ before Evan’s lows pull the listener into the deepest reaches of hell. The use of chugging and djent in the guitarwork, while by no means revolutionary to Ingested or the genre, is executed perfectly and ties together one of the heaviest highlights of the album in this track. ‘Echoes of Hate’ is another example of Ingested’s destructive nature at large, notably at the 3-and-a-half-minute mark with an absolutely earth-shattering breakdown riff. Recovery from the audio-beating that was taken through these last tracks may be found in the tenth and final song of the album, slower tempo and comparatively tame instrumentals make this the melodic highlight of the album that guides the listener out of the jagged and treacherous landscape created in ‘Ashes Lie Still’.
Ingested make new and experimental ventures in this album in much higher volume than any of their previous work, and they succeed in more or less every account. The features are unique and add new elements to the music, the brutality that the heavy scene has come to adore them for still has an iron grip and their development as a band is clearly displayed. It seems pretty safe to assume that fans of the mindless beatdown of slam through to the melodic majesty of death metal will all have things to love about this album.