Anthems of Disenchantment

What bands do you think of when I mention the words Brutal Death Metal? Suffocation? Monstrosity? What about Funeral Inception? Probably not, but if their latest release ANTHEMS OF DISENCHANTMENT is anything to go by, this band could soon be listed among greats such as Suffocation.

Funeral Inception hail from Indonesia and previously played under the name Bloody Gore. After some lineup changes the band changed their name and were signed to the French label Warpath Records. ANTHEMS OF DISENCHANTMENT is their only release under their new moniker, and it is awesome semi-technical brutal death metal.

The opening song on the album, "...Of Banished And Depraved Existence," has no fancy intro, a thing which is becoming ever popular now-a-days. Instead, Funeral Inception spew forth bludgeoning brutality from the go. A guttural growl introduces the listener to 45 minutes of unrelenting heaviness. The playing is tight but not overly technical. Instead the band focus on producing a brutal sound, and that is what they achieve.

Having listened to the album once, I decided it would be a good idea to listen to the album several more times. Each time was as brutal as the last. This album is a must-buy for any death metal fan.

(Originally written by me for http://metal-rules.com)

Brutal death metal - stupid jock music or deranged genius? If you were to ask the kind folks over at the Metal Judgment web board you’d find that both sides of the argument are pretty well represented. I tend to like a lot more of the “broothurl” that I hear, but maybe that’s because I’m a stupid jock, who knows?

Anyways, Funeral Inception is from Indonesia and the play themselves a fine slab of the brutal death metal. Not blazingly original mind you, but so competent that it really doesn’t matter. If these guys fix up some recording issues then they may just find themselves added to the relatively small list of pretty damn good brutal death metal bands.

This brings us to the one major problem of this album: the drums sound like ass. Well not all the drums, the bass drum has a thick pummeling sound which is just right for this type of music, but the snare sounds like garbage. At times I can barely hear it, and then out of nowhere, at the top of the mix all I can hear is “GAT GAT GAT” - nothing but terrible sounding blasts over everything else in the mix save the vocals. It’s really annoying and detracts from what is otherwise an awesome album.

The fairly technical, catchy riffs, the gutteral, unintelligible vocals, the almost comically violent song titles ("Bathing Your Soul With Gore Tears"?) work very well here. I don’t know if I will be coming back to this album all that often, but it does showcase some potential, and I will be keeping my eye out for the next release from these guys.

Originally Published @ www.metaljudgment.com (c) 2003