Soul Incursion – Eternal Darkness

One Listen Review

1st Listen – 13 Dec 2023
Reviewed – 15 Dec 2023

Soul Incursion – Eternal Darkness

Self Released

Released 15 Dec 2023

Eternal Darkness is the debut EP from Finnish outfit Soul Incursion and it is a hefty slab of old school Death Metal. Formed in 2020, the band have quickly identified their sound and happily wear their influences on their sleeves. Think Grave, Pestilence, or Bolt Thrower and you will get an idea of the general direction of the EP.

The 5 tracks on offer last about 22 minutes and are full of delicious old-school death metal riffs, growls and blast-beats. The guitars sound chunky and Aleksi Mattila’s vocals are robust and welcoming and underpinning it all are the drums of newest member Arttu Turunen. To be perfectly honest, Soul Incursion are the full package. That’s not to say that this is the perfect EP. It is good, but at the end of the day, these are 5 tracks that are not ground-breaking. They deliver what they promise, good solid old school death metal, ‘Dreams to Destroy’ has an opening riff that infests the brain, getting the old head nodding, the intro to ‘Abysmal Flames’ is unfeasibly cool, but each of the opening 4 songs have a similar formula that perhaps would not appeal to some, those folk who don’t appreciate the genre

I do appreciate the genre and so I was air drumming, cranking out the solo’s on my trusty air guitar and headbanging away like an old buffoon.I was appreciating the excellent guitar tone and

generally just getting invested in the first 4 tracks. Then ‘Perpetual Wasteland’ started the end of the album.

This is the stand-out track on the EP. This should be the future of Soul Incursion. The final track moves away from the rat-a-tat-tat approach of the other tracks, deliberately slowing the pace allowing the song to gestate and fully grow into itself over its 6 minute running time. ‘Perpetual Wasteland’ is a more thoughtful track, it isn’t rushed and it is all the better for it. The slower, but no less heavy, pacing of the song gives you time to explore the nuances of the track. Clever, well placed, solo’s allow Soul Incursion to demonstrate their song-crafting abilities and it is the perfect way to end a rather decent debut EP.

Eternal Darkness is self-released, and I would be shocked if their debut full length does not have record label support. This EP is worthy of your time.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulincursion

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulincursion

Bandcamp: https://soulincursion.bandcamp.com/