Enterprise Earth – Death: An Anthology
Release Date: 2nd February 2024
Label: MNRK Heavy
Bandcamp
Genre: Deathcore, Djent, Progressive Metal, Metalcore.
FFO: Humanity’s Last Breath, Whitechapel, After the Burial, Meshuggah.
Review By: Metal Miguel
Enterprise Earth announces their exciting comeback with the upcoming release of their new album, “Death: An Anthology,” scheduled for release on February 2nd through MNRK Heavy. The album boasts collaborations with prominent figures from the deathcore scene, including Matt Heafy of Trivium, Ben Duerr of Shadow of Intent, Darius Tehrani of Spite, and Wes Hauch of Alluvial, making it a highly anticipated full-length project. With their fifth album, “Death: An Anthology,” Enterprise Earth embarks on a profound exploration of this universal theme. The band, consisting of Gabe Mangold (guitar, backing vocals, production), Brandon Zackey (drums), Travis Worland (vocals), and Dakota Johnson (bass), confronts the concept of death head-on. They deliver a compelling musical experience that combines relentless double bass drums, powerful guitar riffs, and dynamic vocals to create a soundtrack for the apocalypse, showcasing their unique and immersive vision like never before.
While my opening outlay delivers a mix of my thoughts and the official press release for the band, it serves as the intro to my review because if I hadn’t started with that then this would be a really short review. I say that because I’m still not overly sure how to articulate what I’m thinking, and even though I have listened to this album multiple times, I still don’t know what to make of it. But if I’m to make quota, keep the boss-man and the conglomerate that is the metal over-lord happy, I’ll just have to get this done.
There is a lot to unpack on this album and although the list of bands that this album may be “for fans of”, I’m just not sure that list is long enough because this album jumps all over the shop and as soon as it starts with heavy discordant guitars it jumps to the epic symphonic style euro metal notes, and it’s quite confusing. I get it there might be a concept attached to this, what with collaborations and the core mantra being death, and it’s inevitability, but the execution of that plan might have just got a wee bit lost in the sea that is creativity and pushing out collaboration names. Certainly, if you look at the song and analytically, the lyrics etc you might get a hint of what’s going on, but I’d say it’s not overly obvious what the content is about from the song alone – “The Reaper’s Servant,” which waves pinch harmonics and tumultuous distortion like a scythe might well be how the band sees this creation, but listening to it isn’t that powerful of a metaphor. Some songs are total bangers and when you get five songs in, “King of Ruination” absolutely crushes it and has definite angles towards bands like Meshuggah, a total sledgehammer of a song, but then “Accelerated Demise” is a cheesy prog-style that sprinkles that Djent style riffage in it but sounds like it was written by an over-excited child who didn’t know what to do with the overload of ideas they had, but firmly believed their love of Steve Vai was the way forward. Don’t even get me started on the song that follows, it’s rage-inducing, just because of the sheer audacity that soft-ass shit would get shoe-horned in there for the sake of keeping-track of numbers up, it’s also not a very good song given the journey that the band have put you though up to that point.
I’m sure I’ll get lambasted for my review, but I stand tall on this one. It’s not a bad album by any stretch, but it’s a pic-n-mix of all sorts and is unsettling and very hard to find the listening groove. Collaborations are good, but always better to not sell the product on that fact but rather on the quality of the product, which is just a little on the “meh” side for such a genre of band and concept of storytelling.
(3 / 5)
