ENCENATHRAKH — Ithate Thngth Oceate (review)

ENCENATHRAKH — Ithate Thngth Oceate album cover

Album · 2022 · Brutal Death Metal

3/5 · 2023-02-10
siLLy puPPy

ENCENATHRAKTH dropped its self-titled debut bombshell on to an unsuspecting world in 2015 and basically treated the extreme metal world to its very own supergroup that featured Colin Marston (Gorguts, Dysrhythmia, Krallice, Behold… The Arctopus, etc), Mick Barr (Krallice, Orthrelm, Ocrilim, etc), Weasel Walter (Behold… The Arctopus, The Flying Luttenbachers) and Paulo Henri (Copremesis). The main gist of this band was to create the ugliest freeform brutal death metal possible with all disregard to melody, established compositional structures or everything that popular metal features.

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.