Enshadowed
Stare into the Abyss

Enshadowed stares into the abyss with their new album, one that does look like a typical black metal release if I just judge by its cover. And it was to create black metal art that Enshadowed formed back in the last few years of the previous millennium, they have put together three albums, several splits and some compilations since then. I guess you can claim that the band consists of veterans considering how long they have been around, but as we all know, veterans doesn’t mean great artists and that is probably even more true in the darker reaches of the metal genre where creativity and fresh thinking is shunned by many. So, what about Stare into the Abyss?

It is a black metal album, plain and simple. Pretty traditional in style with smattering drums, repetitive melodies and croaky vocals – kind of like it always sounds. There are no real surprises, the production is pretty typical of the more obscure black metal bands in that it sounds pretty cheap and old. The songs don’t show much variation or depth, also typical of many bands within this genre. At this point the word generic starts coming to mind and I think that it is good that the album is kept relatively short with a playing time of under forty minutes.

This is one of those albums that doesn’t really add anything whatsoever, it is generic black metal that isn’t great in any kind of the way. If you can’t offer novelty you should offer brilliance, Enshadowed offer neither. Their songs sound like second rate material from some of the more decent black metal, it is dull and lacks imagination. We have heard this kind of music millions of times already, more than enough and there is no need for more. I find myself wonder about who the audience for this album is, and I imagine that it might be the black metal collector who just buys album and doesn’t really listen to them, some casual black metal fans might find this appealing but I am not sure they are too many.

A question I often ask when listening through albums is what the band want to accomplish, many times there is an answer even for the more generic releases. In the case of Enshadowed I find myself slightly baffled though, they have so long experience that making a tired generic album should be undesirable, yet that is what I have here. I can’t be money either, considering that this genre isn’t exactly commercially viable with the small audience it has. So, I cannot really see the point other than that the band actually wanted to make a tired and generic black metal album. That, or that they lack the ability for self-criticism and either way that would make this album a success, in their own minds.

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