ENCOFFINATION - Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh (SELFMADEGOD - CD 2010)
Wow, this surely must be one of the most disturbing and freezing albums I’ve ever heard. I actually already reviewed it once, it was a Polish review and is on this location http://nbc.art.pl/recenzje.php?id=1917, but I must say that since I’ve done this review I didn’t go back to Encoffination, until just recently, when Selfmadegod has unleashed upon us the band’s new plague, titled “O' Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres”. Again I was slaughtered and felt like the road roller drove over me, massacring me slowly and crushing into the jelly of blood, meat and bones. Uhh, what a bloodbath. And so I just had to listen to the debut album again, I wanted to confront it with the second LP and see how it all started. And man, I’ve been listening to “Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh” for the whole week now, like three-four times a day and I must say that this debut full length is just fantastic, maybe even better than the “O' Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres”! I don’t know why, because both CDs are just great, but somehow the atmosphere on the debut is deeper and even more eerie and hmm... ritualistic.
The thing I like more on “Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh” is that Encoffination used more introductions between the songs. They make the album more intriguing, but first of all they’re responsible for putting the listener into the right mood and also make the album more diverse, fully getting rid off the potential monotony that otherwise could have got into it due to the slightly one dimensional riffing. But really, all intros are brilliant, fitting the music perfectly, whether it sounds like a satanic horror movie fragment or dark, church organs or even the acoustics (they’re present only in “Coffinpsalms” though). As I said, they complete the music and definitely it’s not something what you may think is forced into the music, it really is in the right place. And with two instrumentals: one to start the album (“Processional”) and another in the middle of it (“Interlude”) it can also feel like sort of conceptual work. Of course the main base of the album has been played in claustrophobic slow paced tempos, but the riffs are massively heavy and brutal, on the verge of death and funeral doom metal with monstrous, deep vokills and mournful, lugubrious mood. The resemblances to a slower paced, early works of Incantation is obviously very easy to point out, but also the likes of Winter, Disembowelment and Sempiternal Deathreign could have influenced the band in few parts, but I think Encoffination is just far more gloomy, slower and heavier. Luckily they also avoid being simple copycats, making sure their music stands on their own and have unique, own characteristics. Personally I really have felt like the atmosphere is just devouring and hmm… I don’t want to say I’ve enjoyed the music, as this is not something I would label as an entertainment, this kind of doom / death metal is rather something what will put you in misery rather than make happy, but yeah, it is fuckin cool album. I recommend it totally.
The thing I like more on “Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh” is that Encoffination used more introductions between the songs. They make the album more intriguing, but first of all they’re responsible for putting the listener into the right mood and also make the album more diverse, fully getting rid off the potential monotony that otherwise could have got into it due to the slightly one dimensional riffing. But really, all intros are brilliant, fitting the music perfectly, whether it sounds like a satanic horror movie fragment or dark, church organs or even the acoustics (they’re present only in “Coffinpsalms” though). As I said, they complete the music and definitely it’s not something what you may think is forced into the music, it really is in the right place. And with two instrumentals: one to start the album (“Processional”) and another in the middle of it (“Interlude”) it can also feel like sort of conceptual work. Of course the main base of the album has been played in claustrophobic slow paced tempos, but the riffs are massively heavy and brutal, on the verge of death and funeral doom metal with monstrous, deep vokills and mournful, lugubrious mood. The resemblances to a slower paced, early works of Incantation is obviously very easy to point out, but also the likes of Winter, Disembowelment and Sempiternal Deathreign could have influenced the band in few parts, but I think Encoffination is just far more gloomy, slower and heavier. Luckily they also avoid being simple copycats, making sure their music stands on their own and have unique, own characteristics. Personally I really have felt like the atmosphere is just devouring and hmm… I don’t want to say I’ve enjoyed the music, as this is not something I would label as an entertainment, this kind of doom / death metal is rather something what will put you in misery rather than make happy, but yeah, it is fuckin cool album. I recommend it totally.
Final rate: 80 / 100
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