Let’s get one thing straight here before we go any further. Enterprise Earth‘s new album Luciferous is absolutely rammed full of face crushing breakdowns and building-breaking guttural vocals as to be almost self-parody.
It also has this very interesting tendency to bring in brief flashes of elements from nu-metal, in particular the whispered vocal lines. This is most evident in the opening salvo Behold, Malevolence. The punishment continues with the hilariously heavy Sleep Is For The Dead and He Exists. Whilst Scars Of The Past is a good song, the long acoustic guitar section at the end could have done with a little bit of a pruning, in the style of a prize winning hedge.
Ashamed To Be Human is a crushing song that manages the trick that is so crucial to making sure your song has an impact, in that it doesn’t outstay its welcome or bore the listener, coming in at a shade over three minutes this song is anything but shameful. Requiem is a good use of breaking up the flow, giving some respite from the relentlessness. The entire middle third of the album is the highlight, every song there a winner.
The title track, Nightfallen and We Are Immortal are all solid-to-great songs, but Enterprise Earth’s most ambitious moment is saved for last with the 9-minute closer There Is No Tomorrow. It very much feels like the synthesis of everything great about this album, and the guitar solo that kicks in at about 5:30 is, frankly, almost too wonderful for this world.
This album is excellently produced by Jason Suecof, who adds another to his CV of great jobs in the metal world. It sounds absolutely massive, the guitars absolutely launching themselves from the speaker in your general direction. The problems with this album are small. Its not as if individual songs don’t work, there are no stinkers here at all. A few of the songs are just a tad too long for what they are. As a body of work, it might have been prudent to cut one or two tracks, as after over 40 minutes of breakdowns and smashing the overdue rent out of the instruments, fatigue does set in and the impact lessens quite a bit. Musicianship, though, is genuinely excellent from the moment this journey begins to its conclusion. Dan Watson sounds like an ultra demonic Brigadier in Lucifer’s personal army, whilst BJ Sampson and Gabriel Mangold put in a serious shift on guitar, throwing out solo after solo and riff after riff like we deserve nothing more from our collective existence.
Whilst it won’t bring anyone not already partial to the chugginess into the fold, deathcore fans looking for a new album to punish their neighbours’ eardrums with are going to have a most excellent time slamming this album again and again.
8/10
Standout Tracks: Afraid to be human, The failsafe fallacy, Infernal Suffering, There is No Tomorrow
For Fans Of: Whitechapel, Carnifex, Dying Fetus, Infant Annihilator
Written by: Louis Tsangarides
