Encoffination : " We Proclaim Your Death, O' Lord "

The first song on this band's fourth album drips more than it moves. The vocals are buried in the murky mix. You sense there is a growl somewhere. Extreme metal be it fast or slow can be so oppressive that it comes across impressive. This wears off after the first song and then they are faced with the question. But can you write a song. This year the trend seems to be band's that have a good sound , but it never follows through into good songs. Why is this so important ? Good sounds come and go , good songs stand the test of time. The second song has more atmosphere than the first which is more of a menacing throb. The vocal continue to be a shadow. More of a low end frequency that is almost there.

I was two and a half minutes into "the Keys of Hell and Death" before it sped up into more of a death metal section and I realized the album had moved onto another song. I love funeral doom. This is on the more death doom outskirts of the genre. I think the big difference is the lack of guitar melodies creating a requiem . Here is the desperation of being buried alive as the distortion suffocates you. Four minutes into "Robe and Crown" before the vocals surface in a more prominent fashion to suggest this is in fact a new song. It speeds up into a tremolo picked section for a brief black moment, but otherwise rides the same pulse.  The longest song is still around the 8 minute mark, though at many points it all seems like one long song.

The buzz of guitar has a moderately more intense tremble at times. It generally relies on hanging over the feedback of the dense fuzz being summoned. There is a little more blackness haunting the edges of  the last song. I can appreciate the dark and despondent mood, thought mood is never something in and of it self that keeps me listening. I will give this album a 6.5, if you are more into density and intensity and less about songs then this will be more back ground music for you.

Encoffination:'Hear me, O'Death"

The full title is 3..Hear me, O'Death(Sing Thou Wretched Choirs). That's a little long for my taste, but their hearts are in the right places as this album is meant to exhalt death. Death worship is a worthy cause in my book so here we go. This American project crawled out of Father Befouled. With heavy Halloween window dressing, they launch into some pretty deathly doom. The vocals are so low they sound like dying breath of an Elder God echoing up from the bottom of the sea. The guitar lays a faster layer of tremolo picked guitar over the slower dirge pounding. This is very effective to create a dissonantly eerie mood. In many ways this band reminds me of Loss.

 There's a chord change and the next thing we know the album has moved onto 'Cemetaries of Purgation". it gets denser and darker like you have been buried alive by these thick riffs and the drums are shoveling the dirt down onto the coffin. As impressive as it is to create this feeling of claustrophobia, something can be said for songwriting and dynamics. This song really only digs deeper into the dynamics already established."Crowned Icons" play with similar frequency , but employs more atmosphere. The heavy chords thud out into the ether. The drums play around the sluggish low end of the guitar  that sounds to have swallowed their bass player whole.

"Rotting Immemorial" crumbles out of the preceding song. The vocals keep to the same patterns through out the album. The faster almost black metal guitar trembling over the hesitant beat, until it all comes once again to a crawl.There is something to be said about this albums drone, even if none of the parts to these songs are particularly memorable, aside from one section in "Rotting..." that sounds like Mary had a little lamb.

It begins to sound like down tempo black metal once we get to "From His Holy Cup Drink, Come Death." The vocals rise out of the submersed gurgle that they have plagued this album with. Cold melodies seeps from the corners of the feedback. Drums lead of 'Pale Voices' rather than the crunch of guitar that has dominated the album. 'Mould of Abandonment" finds the album fading out with more ambiance. The chords find grim beauty, but it is almost to little too late to really have made this one memorable. The funeral march of song does gather some steam in it's death throes, the drums vary and guitars space themselves out allowing a more comprehensible picture of what is going one.What this lacks is the very element that causes funeral doom to excel, that's the mournful guitar melodies. Instead we get a dense pounding, which is fine in some cases, but in others it causes things to drag. So due to this I'll give the album a 6. I like where these guys want to go with it, but with out proper shading in the realm of dynamics the songs sound like one slush heap of a riff. Still if you like straight forward and really slow doom it's not a bad listen. S