REVIEW: Enitor - Morgue

Another review I wrote for Metal Archives. Enitor is/was a Christian black metal band that released an EP called "Morgue" in 2003. Note that while I do compare this band to Catholic Soldier, I don't entirely support the Catholic church, but I do like Catholic Soldier's music.

You can almost feel the fury the band members must have been feeling while recording this. You want to be hedonistic and not seek something higher? You want to hate your neighbor instead of loving them? Enitor have something to say about that.

It's black metal that has a lot of nods to thrash metal, but not really enough to warrant that genre tag. The guitars are generally par-for-the-course thin and buzzing, but get pretty thick and fuming at a couple points. Drumming is surprisingly complex for a raw black metal demo. Don't expect constant blasts, but expect some very prominent drumming. Bass is actually quite audible at points despite the loud, fuzzy production. The vocals are atypically high-pitched, and seem a little out of place in the music at first, but it's not that big of a deal. You get used to them, which is good, I say, because then you can really hear how passionate they are.

You have to appreciate how passionate everything here is. This is up there with the most brutal of unblack bands. The first two tracks, Acquisition of the Grave and The Deistic View, give a good idea of what's going on - loud, fuzzy, pounding, thrash-influenced rage with Luisa screeching over the top. It's not the fastest or most brutal music ever written, but is still pretty rough on the ears (in a good way) compared to what you'd expect from any other random demo, and is still filled with distaste for our illogical, heretical world.

Darkened Skies My Embittered Heart is worth noting separately. It follows the same ideas established by the first two tracks, and everything seems normal at first, but it ends with the music unexpectedly cutting out, and the vocalist yelling out a frightening screech of "FOREVER!... FOREVER!... Forever..." I have no idea what this song is about, but something must have been bothering these people. Wow. I... I hope it wasn't anything too serious.

Overall, the production values tend to vary a little bit from song to song, which is odd, but oh well. The demo's fuzzy and raw throughout, regardless, but barely clear enough that you can hear each instrument and enjoy what's going on. The whole thing is way more brutal and powerful than I was expecting from some old, forgotten demo. In a secular equivalent of this, you may expect feelings of darkness or misanthropy to accompany the emotions here - Entior pass on that nonsense, and just fill the hole with even more raw anger. Listening to this was a little overwhelming, so while I won't be listening to this constantly, I will definitely be listening to it again. For fans of Emperador, Beeroth, Armageddon Holocaust, Verdelger, Primitive Church, and Catholic Soldier.