Night Monumental Evil

Based on the cover art alone, do you have any doubt in your mind that this is going to suck big tits? Not even beautifully natural or artificially sculptured tits, but one that ruptures the very fabric of humanity like the pair on the cover? Who the fuck thought this was a good idea!? With twelve tracks averaging in the three minute range, this album goes on longer than it’s meant to; no gimmicky black metal album should have this many tracks because too many proposals are shuffled around. For an obscure band like this one, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was in for besides stereotypical second wave black metal with symphonic keys… and I was exactly right.

For songs of this nature, the best bet would be to get under ten tracks at least above three minutes each. With Enochian, no song has time to develop – not even the longest song – because the band doesn’t create anything capable of maturing. Maybe the band was going for atmosphere on this one, I don’t know, but even that is too second rate and illegitimate. The riffs aren’t too tight and the music doesn’t seem to be driven by them, even though they’re pretty prominent and can become quite good when they scoot into thrash / death territory. The guitar tone is charred and nice, but when you put everything else on this album around them, they never sound sinister or intimidating.

Here and there exist decent riffs and keyboard usage, and I’m talking some really good parts that either get you to headbang or get you to relax. These moments include the opener of the intro (not the whole intro), the “Black Consil Of The Satan,” and “Snowland.” The rest are sporadic and ideas aren’t exactly focused, so anything else the band thought was good was crammed on the next song to record. This means that some good is overwhelmed by incredibly bad shit, and we’re talking overused keys, plastic drumming, abysmal clean vocals, retarded sample / non-music sections, lazy screaming vocals, and mundane songwriting.

Now is it just me, or do black metal vocalist excel at doing death growls? I’ve seen this trait mostly with symphonic-type black metal bands, and this one is no exception. The screams that make up most of the album are weak and lethargic, with no power from the throat at all. The growls, however, are demonic roars straight from hell, but they’re only on a few songs. After that, we get some clean vocals like on “Nordisk Folklor,” and let me tell you to skip this track altogether because it’s a fucking piece of shit. A horribly dumbed down riff makes way to some off-key, heavily accented, alternative rock type cleans that have no emotion or skill whatsoever. “Hedningenes…” features some more which sounds like Kampfar’s proud cleans, but that’s an insult because THIS band is using them – those cleans belong to Kampfar, god damnit.

The worst track by far is “Fucked Holy Truth,” which is basically a porno track – the reason? Half the song includes some woman apparently having a fake orgasm while getting fucked by Jesus, and then the band plays over it like they’re totally legit. The keys are too childish and try to come off as gothic, but they’re just annoying and silly. The drumming too just doesn’t cut it; synthetic snares and clichéd blast beats run rampant, and that’s a huge problem because the drum bass is made of pillow stuffing. I don’t even know if the bass is doing anything to support any of the instruments because it isn’t noticeable between the high keys and the clicking by the drums.

Just stay away from this horrible mess of an album. Black metal can get pretty bad, but this is an insult to bad black metal. My stomach curls in vomit-inducing pain just listening to it, and it wouldn’t be so bad if they cut half the songs, reworked them with better riffs, cut out all the keys and stupid sections, and made this with better production with superior vocals. Then again, that would mean creating an entirely different album altogether with different band members. When it comes to that, just go listen to a different band. Treat this band like a pair of really rotten tits – they’re tempting because they’re tits, but nothing good can come of it.