ENSNARED "Inimicus Generis Humani"

ENSNARED

“Inimicus Generis Humani”

ENSNARED is quite the odd little beast, a death metal band from Sweden that doesn’t slavishly follow the rules that most Swe-death bands live by. They are pretty eccentric in their approach to the art and while that definitely helps their cause, “inimicus Generis Humani” still has some significant hiccups.

How many albums start with an “Interlude”? This is the only one I know of. I was expecting the usual instrumental balderdash to start the album, but was pleasantly surprised by a heavy metallic number based on basic but very potent riffs. There’s a musty, doomy feel to ENSNARED right from the get go and the album’s sound stays very murky and analog throughout. There are two more “Interludes” on this 8 track album...the 2nd is unfortunately very dull and low key while the third is a bit more interesting but not matching the heaviness of “Interlude 1”. That leaves us with 5 real “songs”, each of which features quirky riffs, cadaverous sounding solos and a vocalist with an odd “grinding” style of almost spoken delivery. Each of these tunes is unpredictable and have interesting parts, although the final song “Black Hole Acolytes” just about put me to sleep with a very boring first half.

This is not an earth-shattering album by any stretch, but the out of the norm style and approach makes it an interesting curio for fans of old school death metal.

INVICTUS PRODUCTIONS

ENSNARED