Incantation - Tribute to the Goat

 

INCANTATION - Tribute to the Goat (ELEGY Records - CD 1997)

I was looking for Incantation’s “Tribute to the Goat” for some time, as I used to have this album recorded on CDR from the times of my tape / CDR trading, but through the years I lost it somewhere. And it was quite difficult to buy the original CD anywhere, especially since I stopped using any credit cards (too much they were tempting me to buy more and more stuff on Ebay hehe). But one day I saw that someone is releasing “Tribute to the Goat” on tape, so I decided to buy it, as this was the only way I can listen to this album at all (the original CD is just too expensive). And I don’t know whether this cassette version of Night Birds Records (limited to 300 copies) is an official release or a bootleg, what I can say is that this label haven’t done that good job in my opinion. OK, the quality of the recording of the cassette is flawless and I am happy about that, but the booklet for this tape is poor. Not only they’ve changed the original cover for something different, but also there’s just nothing interesting inside the booklet, except the song titles. For sure the label could have tried to make it more interesting. So, having this cassette in the collection is fine, but that won’t stop me from chasing the original CD pressing, which I hope to find one day, especially one of those goat blood covered versions. Anyway, as I said I am at least happy that once more I can listen to “Tribute to the Goat”, because this is an awesome album and for sure one of the best releases of Incantation.

Actually I don’t know whether I should call “Tribute to the Goat” an album, as it is sort of compilation of the best early Incantation tracks, all recorded live in the studio and released back in 1997. Metal Archives says it is a live album, but I won’t call it like that, as live album is a live album – recorded during the concert, with the audience, etc. “Tribute to the Goat” has been recorded live, but in the studio and sounds so damn good that it could just be another full length release of Incantation. Who cares, anyway… The most important is that “Tribute to the Goat” fuckin slays. I love this release, it compiles some of the best early Incantation tracks such as “Profanation”, “Unholy Massacre”, “Devoured Death” plus it also has few extras like Necrophagia’s cover (of “Abomination”), song called “Nefarious Warriors”, which I think is unreleased before and all songs from the “Demo 1990”. So, really “Tribute to the Goat” is a very nice and worthy compilation for die hard death metal maniacs. Most importantly the sound quality is just awesome, even that studio live recordings sound damn heavy and brutal and the whole band performance is top notch, without any faults, just pure death metal slaughter… a fuckin bulldozer, which is going to massacre you into shreds. Craig Pillard’s voice sounds like the growls of the beast from the abyss, the guitar sound is just excellent, like a wall of sound, which falls on you grinding you mercilessly. Oh, what a blessed feeling! I have no more questions and doubts… Incantation rules as always and “Tribute to the Goat” is just an awesome release. Maybe it is a time for a vinyl version??

One more thing I wanna say – something I found in the net… I think that John may not be sharing my enthusiasm towards “Tribute to the Goat” so much, as we can read in the interview he did for Voices From the Darkside: “…We did it as a favour for Rob at Elegy Records. It didn't really come out to be what we intended. One of the things we were gonna try to do was re-record some of the older songs and try to get a better production, but I think it came out worst. We also wanted to get some of the newer material at that time out. There was a limited recording budget, and the studio didn't do us any justice. We did it in a day and Craig and myself were partying like idiots...”. Well, who cares… I think it is very nice stuff.

Final rate: 90/100