Invasion
The Master Alchemist
This Is Music
04 October 2009

by Hugh Platt

You know those nights out when suddenly it’s 4AM and you’re standing in a field with some people you don’t know and there’s some naked girls dancing round a fire and you have no idea how you got there?

Yeah, that’s what the debut album from Invasion will do to you.

Even though the London trio’s debut album is a mere 21-minutes long, The Master Alchemist will leave you first dazed, then scrabbling for the ‘repeat all’ button. The formula the three-piece have crafted – stoner riffs, apocalypse drums and soul those vocals - has an addictive, heady atmosphere.  It’s as if it were smelted in some arcane laboratory, either at the top of some misbegotten tower or in the depths of the earth - The Master Alchemist seeps out of your stereo speakers and infuses your mind like a lungful of  opiate fumes.

Invasion’s aural  impatience – only 3 of the albums tracks dare to break the 2-minute mark – is a constant aural finger-beckoning. There simply isn’t time to get too comfortable, to get bored, as by turning stoner-space rock riffery on its head, crushing a style more used to 10-minute guitar epics to mere fractions of that time, leaves you unsure and desperate to discover what’s coming next. One minute the guitars are spinning round your head while the drums batter and bark you on like they do in ‘Spells of Deception’, then the next minute – literally – it’s Brown’s vocal hooks in ‘Rainbows’ that won’t let go. 

This kind of record is only possible when when every single member of a band positively nails it. Marek Steven’s riffs are so raw they’re almost bleeding, helicoptering through tracks like ‘Moongazer’ and growling moodily in ‘Chaos & The Ancient Night’. The soaring vocals of Chan Brown achieve something it is increasingly difficult to claim – a truly unique voice. You can spout off about how band X or band Y’s frontman does something new with those grunts and growls and shouts and screams, but there simply isn’t anyone else in metal delivering what Brown does. And while no record could replicate the  bone-rattling power of Zel Kaute’s live drumming, she still gives The Master Alchemist all the rhythmic rigidity it needs, while remaining fluid enough to snap out a barrage of bloodthirsty fills when needed.

Watch the video to ‘Spells Of Deception’ by Invasion

Your record collection needs The Master Alchemist – even if it’s just as a head-clearing, brain-drenching respite from the conveyor belt of mathcore metalcore deathcore who’ll-really-gives-a-fuck-next-year?-core that makes up the meat and potatoes of most metal fans’ buying habits these days. That field with the naked flame dancers? Invasion are waiting for you there, fangs glistening in the firelight. Come closer….

6/6

Sounds like: Torche, Saviours, The Sword
Top tracks: Spells OF Deception, Six Red Wizards, Chaos & The Ancient Night

Invasion – The Master Alchemist tracklisting
Follow The Smoke
Conjure War
Alchemy
Spells Of Deception
Rainbows
Cursed Treasure
Kings
Moongazer
Invasion
Evil Forest
Six Red Wizards
Chaos & The Ancient Night