Encoffination - Elegant Funerals For The Unknown Dead

ENCOFFINATION - Elegant Funerals For The Unknown Dead (DEBEMOUR MORTI - LP 2012)

Encoffination for me is a synonymous for the bleakest, most depressive, misanthropic and obscure doom death metal. Their music is almost hypnotizing, as it never really varies the tempos or switch between different rhythms, riffs styles or whatever. It is completely derived of any dynamics or diversity even. The skeletal, the base of every song is to get an ultra fuckin heavy, crawling, crushing riff, which would set that darkest and most morbid atmosphere, play it all slow, never to rush things out, add some ghoulish, deep and beastly vocals to it... Let the atmosphere of darkest abyss and sorrow devour the listener - and that's it. Someone would say that this is exactly why Encoffination music sounds dull and repetitive. Well, maybe to some ears it does. For me personally, it is actually the opposite! I feel like it is not a music to entertain, to give you fun or invite to bang your head or whatever. It is about to create the funeral aura noir and to hypnotize, in some way. Which is why it never bothered me that there's not much difference between the songs or if they may sound one dimensional and boring. 

It all depends on personal preferences, but also on the mood you're in. It definitely isn't music, which you would play in sun shine, while jogging, or preparing your BBQ. I know it sounds like a cliche, but in this case the personal mood and also surrounding you play this music actually matters. So, lit just a small light, sit down, have a drink and let these sounds devour you. In case of "Elegant Funerals For The Unknown Dead" we get five songs. And they are some of the best stuff Encoffination recorded, in my opinion. I especially like how "Elegance Above Flesh" goes into "Hear Me, O' Death", with this almost religious, more like sacrilegious probably, atmosphere. But the whole EP is just great. I like what I hear here, all these crushing riffs and monstrous growls... I wish that drums had slightly different sound, but it's not really a problem at all. As it is, "Elegant Funerals For The Unknown Dead" is a brilliant piece of doom / death metal and I can guarantee that it is impressive and infectious. 

“Choirs of dead masses retch sacred hymns, in this eternal condemnation, holy. Above man, above god, death is beautiful...” 

Verdict: 80/100