Billy Boy In Poison - Invoker album review

Bombarded as we are by a never-ending succession of cookie-cutter metalcore bands, Billy Boy In Poison deserve credit for being tricky to pin down. Flying the flag for the routinely under-appreciated Danish scene, this young quintet have skilfully conjured a sound that, while by no means revolutionary, brings together a number of credible elements with often mesmerising results. Death metal is their wellspring from which all this invention pours, but this lot have obviously been paying attention to developments in a post-Gojira world. Sometimes the debt is obvious – Divided State Of Mind borders on a tribute – but when combined with the jaw-wrenching precision of 90s groove metal and shades of Job For A Cowboy’s Sun Eater-era ingenuity, songs like the grimly frantic A Walk On Broken Bones sound like the beginnings of something gloriously new.