### Encoffination: Ritual ascension beyond flesh

#### 09/12/10 || Khlysty

Okay, I like this quite a bit. Encoffination plays the kind of dirty, subterranean-sounding, blasphemy-ridden kind of death metal that tickles me in all the right places. Remember my reviews on Portal? Well, the two guys that form Encoffination seem to follow a similar path; that is, they aim to create a really creepy-yucky atmosphere, instead of trying to blow the listener’s head off with dexterity and technicality. And they achieve their goal in fucken spades.

But, instead of going for Portal’s gurgly, polluted-water sound, Encoffination turn towards Disembowelment, at least as far as production is concerned. The tracks (I’m very reluctant to call them songs) in “Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh” sound cavernous, while the vocals are completely indecipherable deep grunts and growls. Inside this miasmic ambiance, guitars, bass and drums seem to appear and disappear randomly, the riffs totally subjected to the atmosphere of deep doom and desperation the band creates through a very interesting use of samples from old horror flicks, chants, noise and other production tricks.

I don’t know if I get this rightly, but I have the feeling that the band wants “Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh” to play out as a kind of black daemon(oman)ic ritual and on this front they achieve their goal fucking well. Cymbals slash and crash amidst howls and almost unintelligible guitar riffs. Sudden uppings in velocity appear out of nowhere, only for the songs to return to a dirge-y crawl a few meters later. There’s an accentuated sense of desperate chaos and deep depression emanating from the sounds of this record and, believe me when I say that I was truly impressed by the conviction with which the duo creates this unbearably heavy ambiance.

This is one of them records that, while informed by death metal’s origins, move away from the genre’s staples, into territories where only really twisted souls dare set foot upon. With that in mind, and with the forewarning that this is “music” that will taint your mind, I cannot but wholeheartedly recommend for daring fans of death metal.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Selfmadegod
- Website: Encoffination MySpace
- Band
- Justin “Ghoat” Stubbs: vocals, guitar, bass
- Wayne “Elektrokutioner” Sarantopolous: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Procession
- 02. Nefarious Yet Elegant Are the Bowels of Hell
- 03. Miasma of Rotten Serenity
- 04. Eucharist of Bone and Flame
- 05. Interlude
- 06. Beyond the Grace of Flesh Go I
- 07. Entombment of the Breathing Flesh
- 08. Coffinpsalms