Illuminations of Vile Engorgement

(Edit - August 8th, 2011: Yes, I've changed my opinion on yet another album. Hence, another rewrite from scratch.)

Well isn't this a special little release we have here. Brutal death metal band Enmity did what only the insane would try to do - they looked at what Torsofuck were doing, with their chuggy slams and relentless blast passages, and said "How can we dumb this down even further?" And so they have. This is literally some of the filthiest music I've ever heard. It practically oozes. And yet, it's great. Against all odds, Enmity succeeded at creating something great. Through rather unorthodox means, yes, but they did it. See, Enmity did not do what most bands do when writing music, which is look at a musical concept, study said concept and then try to improve on it in their own way. No, Enmity have taken a concept (in this case, brutal death metal, mostly) and then pushed that concept so far out of acceptable realms that it not only borders on atonality, it is impossible as hell to criticize. Beyond a musical value, there is obviously a meaning of some sort to be gathered from this work. To people who don't like this album, that meaning might be the the fact thaat Enmity is the worst band on Earth. But there's something else, something beyond pure musical worth, to be found in the sludge that is Illuminations of Vile Engorgement.

I remember stating in the past that this release was nothing but pure noise, and I realize now that that was a ridiculous and asinine statement. As much as someone unfamiliar with the genre might say otherwise, this release not only has rhythm (the slams are pretty damn catchy, I must admit), it even has hints of melody. Hell, there's even a hint of a clear, unchugged riff around halfway through "Rotten Divinity". Sounds like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but this is a lot more praise than I gave the album last time around. The guitar tracks, which sound like they were recorded in a basement, typically alternate between slow chugs and medium chugs, regardless of whether or not the drum machine is blasting. Hell, they even have a slight hint of that buzzsaw guitar tone commonly used by Swedish death metal bands, and though its presence is probably due to amateurism, it fits the cacophony that Enmity's release as a whole piles into. The vocals are all a guttural mess of pig slurry, and they're a nearly constant force on the music, which of course simply adds to the mess.

The songs themselves typically alternate between constant blasting at approximately the same pace and then short bursts of chugging formed into slams. If this was some normal old brutal death metal band, I probably wouldn't care, or I would write this off as simply writing crappy songs. But the sludgy, heavy mess of a guitar tone mixed with the constant gurgling mixed with the relentlessness of the whole mix... it all fits together. I also must commend this band for managing to keep up momentum in their songs: whether it be a slam or a blast, these guys always carry a nice buildup, and release it at the perfect time. There's also a song out of place on this release: "Severe Lacerations". It's a flamenco track, and though it's not great (but I'm sure anyone who was listening to this release for relentless brutal death metal would say the same thing), it provides a nice alibi should someone charge the members of Enmity with mental retardation.

Illuminations of Vile Engorgement is near-impossible for me to criticize as a reviewer, because like Khanate, the pleasure in this music comes in the form of displeasure, and it's hard to draw a line between what's simply a flaw and what's an intended element of the band. I suppose in that case that my score for the album is mostly arbitrary, but I will say the guitar tone could be a bit louder and a slight bit crunchier in the mix to give it an extra "oomph". Like Last Days of Humanity, this is not a band I'll probably end up listening to often. But it does what it sets out to do near-perfectly. It is the full embodiment of rage, anger, and chaos that death metal was meant to be from the start. It cuts away the technicality, the melody, the catchiness - it throws all standards for the genre out the window, and forces the listener to experience the music on its own terms. Its own crude, repulsive terms. Even when it is reviled, it's doing exactly what its creators intended it to - causing unrefined disgust. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Enmity: evil in its rawest form.