Vomit Forth Intestinal Excrement

You know, there's only so much "brutality" one can take before howling mercy. Hurling that word around ad nauseam for every album with downtuned guitars and dissonant chord progressions and gurgled vocals that sound more like a guy having a long agonizing bout of constipation is not what qualifies as "brutal death metal" for me and kind of waters down the word to the point where it's redundant. You know when you say a word so many times over and over and over to the point where the word sounds like a bunch of letters put together and the syllables sound alien in the end? That's what I feel the word "brutal" is becoming when describing something like this, and other albums of its ilk whose mere existence is to be the who's who of brutal death metal.

I found this beast on YouTube one day while randomly window shopping the metal wheelhouse I'm constantly entrenched in day after day. I saw the band logo, the grotesque cover art, and the title. My immediate thought was "I'm getting into brutal death metal a bit. I'm into Devangelic, Ingested, Skinless, Pathology, and some Devourment, too. I'm ready to add these guys onto that small, but growing list."

Boy, will that never happen in a million years....

This one's going to be hard because I've all but blocked every memory of this seventeen minute EP out of my mind. It's been almost a year since I stumbled across this gem and I've never listened to it since. But unlucky for me, I decided to listen to it again for the sake of this review. Where to even start? First off, let's jump on board and talk about the vocals. They're awful. Nothing of quality to be found here. I don't know if they pitch-shifted the vocals at any time during or after the production, but they don't sound natural. It sounds like they've been tampered with to some extent. Beyond that, they're just directionless pig squeals and deep gurgles. There are apparently lyrics, too, which rubs me the wrong way on so many levels. I've never understood why bands like this even need lyrics for people to follow along to. If the guy in the studio isn't going to bother to sound anything out and insist on growling indecipherable bullshit into the listener's ears, why even bother trying to make lyrics? It's easier to just insert your own lyrics when the quality of the vocals are this terrible. Even with bands that have vocalists that are criticized for having indecipherable vocals at times, they at least make an attempt to be understood and can be followed along if there are lyrics accompanying the rhythm and beat of the music. If not that, their vocalists certainly aren't competing to be the worst, most grating vocalists in human history.

The instrumentation isn't much better, either. The guitars may as well be being played by a spastic of crack cocaine, speed, LSD, or any drug combination thereof. Every riff soundds down tuned to absolute hell, and simplistic, caveman chugging taking the forefront of every single goddamn song. I mean it. Every song may as well have their riffs copied and pasted from one song to the other.

1) Take one chunky riff;
2) Play it;
3) Change up the pattern;
4) Copy and paste for seven more songs;
5) Repeat until the end

The drums? Just as equally atrocious. Nothing but blasting from start to finish with no hint of ceasing or allowing the listened to catch their breath even once with a slower moment of brutality. Same fills, same ceaseless blast beats, same drum patterns - it gets old really quick. Not to mention just how much technicality this thing lacks. Now I know that brutal death metal isn't known for its technicality, flair, or virtuosity. This I can understand and I realize that one of the caveats of this particular genre of music is that in its simplest form, it's meant to be as loud, abrasive, unappealing, and uncompromising as possible; but at the same time, there has to be a baseline level of quality from the musicians. They have to at least be able to play their instruments. Granted, the two Webers here, Rob and Chad Weber, can play their instruments. That's about all I can say, though. They at least have a general understanding of how guitars and drums work. For some listeners, that's all they need to be satisfied. This, however, does not satisfy me. This is awful stuff. The bass? There is no bass. I guess there's a bassist, but I don't like to have to force myself to find out where the low end is on an album. If the guitars are down tuned so goddamn low that they provide enough of the necessary rumble you need or turned up so loud that it swallows the bass, why even have a bassist to begin with?

I guess I should talk about the songs, too, but what is there to say? They all sound the same. There's no variation in the songs whatsoever. The only song I would say is tolerable is "FleshRot." It's the only song I would say that has an actual groove to it and has riffs that are played well and are actually synchronized with the other instruments, but that lasts about thirty seconds. Other than that, there's nothing here worth even a fraction of your time. There's nothing catchy or memorable that'll stick in your brain. Unless you're into this kind of "unrelenting br00tal death metal" that "separates the poseurs from the real metalheads," then more power to you, I guess.

As for me, I say avoid this thing, and this band, like the plague.

P.S. The production is shit, too.

....That I happen to like.

Maybe there is something wrong with me, the first time I heard Enmity I did not dismiss it as rubbish 10 seconds into the song (like most people seem too do). However saying this, I completely understand the sheer amount of hate Enmity receive. Their sound essentially consists of non-stop blastbeating, "muddy" guitar playing and an indecipherable stream of vocals. I think Enmity's sound can be summed up perfectly by a comment I found on one of their songs on youtube. The comment read "this is what death metal sounds like to those that do not like death metal".

The musicianship on this E.P (like the full-length album that followed) is very impressive. The guitars and drums are so tight that they create a monolithic wall of sound. Throughout the fast sections of the songs every note on the guitar is accented by the part of kit, creating an unrelenting and punishing feel to the music. These guys do not let you breathe for one single second whilst listening to this, which is why I feel that Enmity is so off-putting for many people. Having heard both this E.P and their full-length, I can easily say that this album is superior. The main reason being that there are more slams and mid-paced sections heard on "Vomit Forth Intestinal Excrement", tracks like "Emotionless Addiction to Butchery ", the title track and "Extracting the Fetal Christ " are all perfect examples of this. The songs lurch awkwardly between frantic blast-beat dominated sections and powerful slams without any real sense of structure. All of this is achieved without letting the listener breathe for one minute. To explain my use of the word awkwardly, this unrelenting and punishing approach to death metal SHOULD NOT WORK yet I find myself enjoying listening too it. The fact I shelled out money to buy both Enmity's full length and E.P tells me they are doing something right.

All of this said, I am not blindly going to worship this band or this release, for they have one VERY IRRITATING flaw. The vocals literally do not stop, there is very little variation in vocal patterns and they dominate 90% of Enmity's music. However I am sure that the member's of Enmity are well aware that they should tone down their non-stop use of vocals, but they are not going too because it adds to the sheer unrelenting brutality of their output. I find this frustrating because Enmity's vocals do drown out the other instruments creating little room for the guitars and drums to shine. If this one little flaw was corrected I believe Enmity would probably be a more respected band within brutal death metal genre. You may have noticed I have done little to explain why I enjoy listening to Enmity's output. This is because I simply cannot explain why I like their style, so many things about their sound should make brutal death metal fans reject them as rubbish (and most do).

Overall, this E.P contains the most intense and disgusting 17 minutes of pure sonic obliteration you will ever hear, if you get a choice between buying this E.P or their full length, I say go for this album. Whilst their full-length is very similar, there is more memorable material to be found here and 17 minutes is the perfect length for Enmity. Even the most devoted fan of this band could not honestly say they managed to actively listen to every second of "Illuminations Of Vile Engorgement" because it simply is too overpowering at almost double the length of this E.P.

My advice is to buy this cd, 30% of you will like it and 70% of you will despise it. The worst that can happen is you will own an ashtray with a grotesque image upon it.

Standout Tracks

- Vomit Forth Intestinal Excrement
- Extracting The Fetal Christ
- Emotionless Addiction To Butchery

80%

Enmity is one of those underrated bands from Arizona. Their music is incredibly obscure and so technical that every single last little move on the guitar is followed on the drums. This is written by two brothers who form the core of Enmity, on guitars/vocals and drums respectively, while all of their other band members are people who come and go. Given the nature of the music and the incredible complexity, this is not hard to understand. I don’t know how people can play this music at all, it seems entirely alien and beyond human capacity to reproduce, yet we know people wrote this music and recorded it to sound the way it does intentionally. All of you ‘critics’ have got your heads up your ass on this band, and it is understandable, this is not a joke metal band or one that sits well with trendies. This is not a cliché band and as such is very hard to digest. Their music is pushing the boundaries of musicality in general, and the amazing technicality is not punctuated by primitive riffs or anything other than more blasting and more technicality, and more brutality. This album they still sound somewhat human, and are still noticeably people, although barely. Highly recommended to all true fans of brutal music. If you are in it for the trend and the atmosphere forget this, if you are in this for self-enlightenment through brutality, get this!
I can mention no other bands who are similar to them so I won’t even try. High lights in this album are ‘Inhumanity’, ‘Perverting the Ministries of Christ’ and the track from their demo ‘Emotionless Addiction to Butchery’. This phrase defines their music one hundred percent, this precisely what this is, no emotions, just merciless aural slaughter. Hail this sickness!!!!!

There is definitely a point at which the heaviness and brutality of a band, as a point unto itself, far from being a good thing, and collapses inwards taking any musical credibility with it.

Enmity is one of those bands. The only (and I do strongly mean THE ONLY) reasons anyone would listen to this, regardless of tastes in death metal, is;

a) For a laugh.
b) As a demonstration of overdone extremity to others.
c) If you're retarded.

Although there is a lot of intrinsic value in the nature of brutally heavy music; its existence itself symptomatic of many things in our own nature and society, Enmity oversteps the boundaries of coherence entirely and becomes a self-satirical masquerade of all that can go wrong with this genre of music. While chaos in essence, like brutality, is another useful tool in metal's favour, there are bands that capture both the aural and structural elements of it while remaining coherent enough to present the package as a whole; bands like Nefas, Psychofagist, early Kataklysm, Sikfuk, Yattering, even Meshuggah succeed at this, while Enmity fails miserably.

Every Enmity track, without exception, is a pitifully underproduced morass of constant gutter vocals, the same two or three anonymous chunky guitar riffs, and the same drum track; same speed, same sound, same fills. This is brutal death metal without any noticeable technicality. Brutal death metal with no groove or structure. This is grind with no catchy riffs. Grind with no sense of speed; the guitars and drums are never actually aligned, and while other bands (eg Nefas) pull off this particular aspect, somehow, with coherence, Enmity just blasts and stutters along not even caring to try and unite the two; is it just a complete lack of instrumentation skill? I can't really tell; if the production had a colour, it'd be cloudy dark brown. This is pointless. While pointlessness wouldn't be expended entirely over the course of one two minute track, Enmity make a point of filling this EP and at least subsequent albums with very nearly the exact same two minutes for every track. While i'm loathe to say 'THE exact same track' because that is evidently an exaggeration and an insult to anyone's open-mindedness, this is pretty much as close as you can get to that statement while avoiding noise and extreme drone doom genres. Enmity don't even have a concept to try and be convincing with.

Nevertheless, give them a spin sometime so you don't have to take my word for it. This is about as brutal as you can get in deathgrind, but it counts for shit; anyone that listens to Enmity with any pretentions to seriousness is only in it for how br00tal music is, and so isn't worth paying any attention to. Avoid.