Encoffination - O'Hell, Shine in Thy Whited Sepulchres (2011)

Of the 9,000,000 bands that are tucked within the stinking and rotted crevice that lies betwixt Incantation's grizzled nutsack and tampered with arse, Encoffination are probably the band that comes the closest to capturing the essence of Incant's earlier material. With the low, mountainous yet almost whispery vocal rumblings, the veritable minefield of pinch harmonics and the mandatory cavernous gloom conjured fourth by the guitars, Encoffination certainly have the right idea. The problem is that things tend to meander a bit, and I don't mean that they simply "chill on the E", but there are wide chasms of uninteresting moments, despite the band possessing the necessary tools to chisel out a monolith to end them all. Somehow, Encoffination come up short in the long run.

This is not to say that Encoffination are a lost cause as the band does manage to get a lot right despite their flaws. The tuning and guitar sound overall is impeccable. This is the kind of shit you'd imagine accompanying your thoughts as you cross the River Styx on your way to Medusa's isle. The key phrase here is 'cavernous-fucking-gloom' folks, and Encoffination has quite the impressive grasp on this concept. There are plentiful amounts of crawling doom riffs, drudged through the depths of the river of death and vocalist Justin Stubbs emits a spectral croak to rival those of Craig Pillard and Will Rahmer combined. Again, the problem with Encoffination is that the "miss" moments unfortunately outweigh the hits and I ultimately find myself reaching for something less yawn inducing.

It's actually all a bit disheartening to me as "death/doom" is a style of music very dear to my heart, yet so few truly grasp it's essence. It's obvious that Encoffination do, in fact, have a thorough understanding of what it is that they've involved themselves in. If these guys would take a moment before releasing 52 ep's, 7"s, full length albums and what have you, and actually spent a moment "crafting" instead of mindlessly releasing shit for the sake of being prolific, I'm sure the band could come up with something worthwhile, and I mean that sincerely as I can plainly see that they are in possession of all the proper ingredients. Only time will tell.