Genre: Death/Doom Metal | Label: Caligari Records
Location: Vancouver, BC| Listen: Bandcamp
Encoffinate are another band from Vancouver that contains members of many other active bands in the metal underground. With members of Radioactive Vomit, Deathwinds, Ceremonial Bloodbath, AHNA, Grave Infestation, Temple of Abandonment, etc, it’s a safe bet that the Encoffinate demo will be worth listening to. Indeed, it is one potent slab of death/doom metal that sounds like it’s trying to crawl out of the depths of hell.
There are many approaches to death/doom, and Encoffinate sound like they’ve taken the Celtic Frost path that classics like Winter took and pushed to the limits of slow metal. There are some obvious Celtic Frost inspired riffs, and there’s an abundance of Tom G Warrior-isms in the vocals, as put forth by drummer/vocalist KS. Just listen to the opening of “Autointerment,” which has a big “HEYYYYYYYYYY” among other familiar sounding death grunts. This is comparable to Divine Eve/Crimson Relic at times, sans punk beats, but they do incorporate the “goat beat” instead to give some of those parts a quicker pulse.
Despite some of the riffs having a very death metal feel, complete with tremolo picked patterns across phrases, the drums pace these parts in ways to keep the tempo feeling slow. Furthermore, we can see more use of musicality with the haunting melodies in the opening of track “Black Skies of Terror” that features some really gloomy Autopsy inspired parts. Again, this song comes into a riff that could very well be featured on a blasting death metal record, but the drums hold back to create mood and feel. This song is probably the most Celtic Frost sounding on the recording, as some of these riffs wouldn’t feel out of place on “Morbid Tales.” Can we also appreciate how disgusting KS’ vocals are? They’ve always been the master of various vocal styles in various bands, and they absolutely nail the vocal performance here. Between bestial growls and Tom G Warrior impressions, they are all over the place vocally on this recording.
“Cimmerian Corpse Dungeon,” being a demo, does not have the most polished production, but it’s very listenable, and by no means raw. The guitar and bass tones have enough separation between the two. Even the drums are awesome, with the double kick parts cutting through fairly well without any excess amount of click. That being said, the toms leave a little to be desired, but again, this is a demo, and I’m sure they’ll have more impact if they ever do a proper full length.
This demo stands out among all the members’ other projects as unique, as it’s not fast blasting death metal, bestial war metal, or completely desolate funeral doom. They’ve come together to create something that just punches you right in the gut with the most deliberate of pacing. If you love death/doom but want something that’s more brutal as opposed to ethereal, Encoffinate does a great job of that on this 23 minute, 4 song demo. These tracks are being released as a split 12″, which hopefully means a full length is in the works.
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