Incarnate is the seventh studio album by American metalcore band Killswitch Engage, released on March 11, 2016.
[7] Writing this album proved to be lengthy and troublesome, Adam Dutkiewicz commenting that lead singer Jesse Leach had "hit a wall with ideas" during the songwriting process after completing three or four tracks on the album, adding that "[Jesse] couldn't find lyrics he was really stoked on".
Leach himself has stated that he "came to a point where this album literally drove me crazy", in that "there were a good couple of weeks where I wasn't myself.
"[8] Leach spoke at length on the lyrical themes that comprise the album, telling Blabbermouth that "I wanted to be able to speak on current events — stuff that is relevant to us today, stuff that's in the headlines — but I wanted to do it in such a way where it's ambiguous enough where people can sort of draw their own conclusion.
So in order for me to make a valid point that said something, I had to submerge myself into that stuff and really start paying attention to what's going on.
I'd actually sent him an idea I had for the album cover, which… I came out of a nightmare and had a dream of a man being pulled apart by two snakes and two cranes, and his insides kind of, like, coming out, which is pretty graphic and not really our style for KILLSWITCH, but it was the image that we used and had transformed by another artist.
[18] Thom Jurek from AllMusic awarded the album a score of 3.5/5, stating that "as a whole, Incarnate improves on the creativity and restlessness offered by Disarm the Descent.
It does occasionally take risks, and they do pay off, but otherwise it plods along at a pedestrian pace, only to be redeemed in part by Leach's vocal versatility."
Chillingworth did, however, praise lead vocalist Jesse Leach's vocal delivery throughout the album, by stating that he thought "Leach's vocals, at least, are never short of incredible and 'Incarnate' is arguably his strongest and most diverse outing with the band.