ENCENATHRAKH

While sounding like a one-off, this team of seasoned veterans has continued releasing what i have designated extreme noise metal with ITHATE THNGTH OCEATE serving as the third release. There have been a few name changes since 2020's "Thraakethraaeate Thraithaake" with Paulo Henri Paguntalan shortening his name to Vito, Mick Barr becoming Rick, Colin Marston adopting the name Nigel and Weasel Walter calling himself Coward. There's also a couple more musicians on board. Sesh and Session play bass. Well not much changes with this band in seven years and what this album dishes out is another delivery of dissonant brutal death metal that is as chaotic as a traditional war on a battlefield.

Eight tracks crank out the most down-tuned dreadful menagerie of loose canons in the metal world. Of course anything with Mick Barr, Colin Marston and Weasel Walter is going to be weird and extreme and put them all together in the same room and it's literally like raising hell to the Earthly plane. The pyramid and so-called theme of this release focuses on Egyptian and Sumerian texts but that's really just a triviality since the only thing detectable through this 27 1/2 minute run is adrenaline fueled angsty death metal that's as formless as a plume of smoke drifting about. Somehow these guys engage in the virtuosity of tech death metal, the bleakness of disso-death and the explosiveness of brutal death metal simultaneously.

This one actually has a bit better production since the debut but basically this is ENCENATHRAKH by the books. Erratic jittery guitar riffs and squeals, freeform bass grooves that sound like hard bop jazz from hell, incessant blastbeat drumming that sounds like Weasel Walter is playing on the kitchen cooking pan set and unintelligible grunts, guttural groans and pig squeals. Occasional excursions into higher register guitar licks sound like tortured demons trying to escape the incessant swarm of cacophonous din. There seems to be absolutely no point in this other than making as much extreme noise as humanly possible. And these guys succeed in doing just that!

The exception to this is the closing "Outro: Chronology Rejection Conjecture" which is a freaky two minute noise collage with no metal instrumentation. Yeah this is not for the feint of heart. I love myself some good brutal death metal, dissonance, break-neck speeds and even freeform avant-garde madness but this band doesn't really scratch any itches except to experience the occasional complete breakdown of musical systems. It's like the soundtrack to a planet that has just been destroyed by the Death Star and the simultaneous torment of souls set to sounds detectable in the physical plane. It's a fun spin but i never listen to these guys' albums a second time.

It took five years to get it out but it pretty much follows in the footsteps of the debut with a relentless pummeling style of technically charged brutal death metal enshrouded in dissonance and avent-garde mindfuc.kery. The longest album of these crazed noisemakers, the double T album features eleven tracks at almost 43 minutes. In many ways it's business as usual but when killing is your business sometimes a group of blood thirsty crazed madmen are in it for the sport than for any other reason so i'm sure they don't care if anyone likes this or not.

This is what i call extreme noise metal. It's like Walter's Flying Luttenbachers on speed, caffeine and crystal meth with ridiculously fast tempos pummeling your senses away like a jackhammer in downtown Manhattan. Formless swarms of guitar riffs flap around like a crazed exaltation of larks aimlessly flying en masse in gloomy skies and deep guttural growls and pig squeals that sounds as if Satan himself has some digestive issues. Add to that incessant brutal time signature changes and all together you simultaneously have both the most brutal metal possible along with the most obnoxiously hostile prog.

Just like the debut, this one is forced chaos exclusively for its own sake. There are a few moments of dark ambience serving as intros on a few tracks so it does let up for fleeting moments but even then everything is designed to be as jarring as musically possible and the effect is like a warehouse of TNT blowing up in the middle of a wartime battlefield scene with blood and body parts flying around in every direction.

Even most metalheads will hate this. Think of the extreme avant-death metal version of Psyopus or Behold?.The Arctopus and you're on the right track. I can't say this is a band i revisit often but when the mood strikes for something that's unapologetically obnoxious then how can you got wrong with the most proggy fueled brutal death metal possible with the constructs of freeform jazz. Definitely a fun and wild ride but too much exposure will rot your soul and make your head explode. For those special moments only.

This is one of those albums that has one and only one goal at hand and that is to deliver some of the most unrelenting and pummeling brutality humanly possible and i must admit that these guys succeed in doing just that. Upon first listen it sounds like someone set fire to a warehouse filled with dynamite and fireworks as the rhythmic cacophony is as jarring and irregular as a natural gas explosion and the ensuing chaos. Every track is utterly relentless with pig squeal vocals lacing the pummeling erratic drum abuse and melody free metal madness with brutal death metal riffs whizzing by at breakneck speed like chickens with their heads freshly severed.

This is one of those for the adrenaline seekers who love the pummeling brutality of bands like Suffocation or Cryptopsy but also seek the muddled murky and swirling production values of funeral doom metal bands like Esoteric. While the sameness of the tempo casts its own special type of mesmerizing monotony, the energy level is just blows the roof off the house guaranteeing no possible narcolepsy will occur while listening to this one. Perhaps extreme for the sake of being so alone but a captivating and mercifully short (33:41) journey through hell's soundtrack!