Encoffination – III: Hear Me O’ Death (Sing Thou Wretched Choirs) (Selfmadegod Records)
Thursday, 11th December 2014
Ever feel like you are having “too good a day?” The type of day that you just need to get back to that soul-crushing brutality of everyday life and ground yourself a bit. Boy, does Encoffination have just the thing for you. Hear Me O’ Death is sure to make the happiest person on the planet feel like they’ve lost their best friend.
Brought into this due to the killer artwork and somewhat offbeat title, Encoffination’s third attempt is one that wallows in despair and bleakness. This may in fact be one of the more suffocating atmospheres in recent memory. Take the droning funeral doom processional tempo, add in that Onward to Golgotha-era Incantation filth and heaviness, and hold tight to it for an hour. There are two tempos here: slow, and ‘drag your body across the burning desert sun in hopes of one drop of water’ slow. Add in some truly deep, ominous growls that sound more creepy than menacing, and that’s basically it here. It’s minimal for sure but it’s what the band is going for and it’s effective in its process. Nothing really breaks here, Encoffination is dead-set in their execution and the feeling is haunting and claustrophobic.
That being said, the lack of variation does keep it feeling a bit “one-note,” but it’s hard to truly lampoon the band for this when it’s clear that this is the end product the band was attempting to achieve. Absolutely putrid in design, it will take some guts to get through this one in a single sitting. This is a giant slab of monolithic darkness and depression.
