### Encoffination: O' hell, shine in thy whited sepulchres

#### 04/01/12 || gk

Encoffination released their second album this year and this was something I’d been looking forward to. Formed in 2008 by Ghoat and Elektrokutioner, “O’ Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres” is the bands second full length and continues down the morbid path established on their debut.

“O’ Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres” tightens up on a lot of aspects in comparison to “Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh.” The songs are slightly longer, the instrumental interludes and samples are all gone and the duo are focusing completely on their doom death dirge. There’s very little that differentiates these songs and over the course of almost 40 minutes an atmosphere of suffocating claustrophobia is built with absolutely no release. In fact, these 8 songs could have just been fused into one gigantic epic and things wouldn’t have sounded or felt any different. The duo occasionally speed things up with some raw death metal blasting which serves as a counterpoint to the crawling riffs and adds some variety to the music but overall this is some heavy as fuck death doom that is very dirge like.

Imagine Incantation slowed down to funeral doom speeds with a bit of Autopsy’s Acts of the Unspeakable thrown in and you’ll get a vague idea of what this sounds like. This is raw, dirty death metal and might even be considered amateurish by some but it works in building atmosphere. Something like “Washed and Buried” is a case in point. Coming up halfway through the album, its main riff is pure Incantation worship but the song crawls with echoing drums hidden behind what sounds like layers of fuzz and distortion and vocals that are incredibly guttural. It builds up a great atmosphere of claustrophobia and uneasiness and it’s the same story with every song on this album. Atmosphere is king on “O’ Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres.” The sound is raw, lo fi and reminds me of a 3rd or 4th generation cassette passed around from hand to hand.

“O’ Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres” is a concept album based on Ghoat’s experience in the funeral industry and the album succeeds in creating a sound scape that is just as inexorable in its march as death is. Not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach but if you like your death metal old school and slow and like any of the one hundred bands that Elekrokutioner has been involved with then “O’ Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres” might just be to your liking.

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Self Made God Records
- Website: Encoffination MySpace
- Band
- Ghoat: vocals, bass, guitars
- Elektrokutioner: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Sacrum Profanum Processionali
- 02. Rites of Ceremonial Embalm’ment
- 03. Ritual Until Blood
- 04. Elegant in Their Funebrial Cloaks, Arisen
- 05. Crypt of His Communal Devourment
- 06. Washed and Buried
- 07. Pall of Unrequited Blood
- 08. Annunciation of the Viscera