Illuminations of Vile Engorgement

But then again, I guess it depends on how you define brutality. If brutality is ultrafast, heavy, guttural deathgrind, Enmity definitely nails it. This album is a fucking freak show, and it does come across as one 33-minute song of utter depravity.

I don't mind bands being brutal just for the sake of brutality, and these guys apparently claim to aim at out-brutalising everybody else. Fair enough. The question remains, do they succeed? Only partially. They're most certainly among the fastets, heaviest outfits out there, but . . .

The guitar work, once you're able to unearth it beneath the layers of mud that the production consists of, is mainly comprised of chugging riffs, a bit like Dying Fetus, but also a bit like (insert generic deathcore band name). I would have liked something slightly more intricate. I like simplicity in death metal (like Hateplow, Abscess, Bloodbath or Death Breath), but this is taking simplicity to extremes.

The drums are fast. End of story. Ridiculously fast. All the time. I like fast music as much as (or maybe more than) the next guy, and I laugh with glee every time I encounter something that is faster than anything. I enjoy listening to The Berzerker and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. But Enmity, while superbly fast, quite simply lack something, a certain quality that makes other bands more fascinating to listen to. I want to like this album more, but I can't. I want to say that it's the new definition of brutality, but it isn't.

In brutal death metal, a band like Brodequin manages to be more interesting, while maintaining a similar level of brutality. Other bands, such as Revenge, manage to sound muddy and extremely heavy and still seem even more extreme than Enmity. The first couple of Carcass albums are another example. Black Witchery another. Iperyt. The list goes on. And Watchmaker and The Axis of Perdition are probably the most extreme music I have ever had the honour og hearing. Both of these two bands are very well produced, very chaotic and very,
very evil.

To sum things up, this is not a bad effort, not at all. It just could have been much better without relinquishing any of the brutality that it strives so hard for.