Ingested – The Tide Of Death And Fractured Dreams (Review)

Time for a new Ingested record! The UK based Death Metal / Deathcore act release their seventh full length record. As always, I’ll start with what strikes me first and that’s the art… goddamn, that thing is amazing! The cover art is a creation of the artist David Seidman, who already did the art for the band’s previous record Ashes Lie Still. His style is surreal, dreamy, macabre, sometimes even gory but always class and beautiful.

To the music: Over time and ever since they have been releasing music, Ingested managed to stay true to their origins and their sound but have always changed a few little things with every single release. With this one, the change is much more prominent! We’re used to that super clean and punchy production from their recent few releases (I’m a huge fan of everything clean and sharp!) but on The Tide of Death and Fractured Dreams, I feel like its all even a little more polished, especially the drums. Those sound incredibly sharp! What really makes a difference on this record though are the atmospheric passages and layers used on basically all songs. Those give the whole album more depth and more personality. Overall they exchanged a little of their brutality for more melody, a bit more tech and much more atmosphere which makes this their most mature release.

Some might say its their softest, but I prefer the term mature. That is how it sounds to me. But worry not, they still know how to use nasty, slamming riffs and they do hit the drums like there is no tomorrow! For a band this active, in a relatively flooded genre I find it remarkable that even after six full lengths (seven now), all their EP’s, reduxes and remasters, they are still able to break new ground and are still finding new methods to stay creative.