Track Listing:

01. Entrance To...
02. Black Oceans of Infinity
03. Catalyst
04. What Remains
05. Solitude

Rated:
10 / 10

Total Play Time:
27:55

Band's Webpage

This is a question for any musicians that may be reading this. Have you ever heard someone that plays the same instrument that you do that is just mind-blowing and nothing short of incredible? Someone who just makes you say “why bother trying when there are people out there this good?” Well, if you’re one of these people, just be happy you didn’t hear Enamored first, because not only would you have quit your instrument… you’d blow it up with a case or two of dynamite. If you haven’t yet strolled across any musicians of this stature, either prepare yourself…or have a strong heart and a will to go on.

Black Oceans is an all out album full of virtuosic guitar riffs and enigmatic bass lines. Enamored makes even Necrophagist seem simple at times here people. The opening track is a short instrumental that just blows me away with it’s extremely tight and technical approach along with unique songwriting to make it stand out from the other bands of their style. While they may have really difficult and dizzying riffs and cyclic drumming barrages…they never really manage to become a technical death metal band. Somehow, they avoid the classification here with putting in some really nicely played acoustic passages and having classic old school death metal reminiscent riffs in the verse and chorus sections most often.

Entrance To… begins this short but satisfying five track EP here with some of the craziest sounding music I’ve ever heard. The way the bass and the guitar intertwine is simply out of this world. The combination of Jonathan and Jeremiah’s music is so complex that it would make John Petrucci shit himself in awe. This short little mind bender may only be a minute and half long track, but it packs the same punch of a seven minute opus from any other band of their creed (if there even are any!).

Continuing through that track and straight into Black Oceans of Infinity, Enamored waste no time in bringing in their powerful and steady drummer, Daniel, along with Jonathans brutal and demonic vocals. This quick shift from insane technical mastery to strong and sharpened mid-nineties death metal sounds infallible. Throughout this track they have clean guitar sections bursting at the seams with talented little licks and progressive oddly timed structures that sound utterly and perfectly smooth. Then of course we have the almighty solo at the tail of this track around 7:30 into it, in which the speed and technicality of it is close to being labeled as unparalleled. I’m quite sure Rusty Cooley or Michael Angelo Batio would be proud to call this one their own.

Next up, we have the track called Catalyst which is another instrumental on here…the second of three on this EP. Some of you may be thinking, what the hell…three instrumentals on a five track album? But I think it’s an awesome idea that ends up working very well for these guys. This track is about five to six minutes of all acoustic guitar and tricky bits of drumming until it hits the section full of distortion in which then the entire band comes in and plays for another minute or two. Once again the guitar solo in this song at the end is veering on the edge of impossible to recreate. This is without a doubt my favorite instrumental track I’ve ever heard.

The next two tracks follow that same song to instrumental pattern as mentioned before and just slay as much as the first three. These three brothers sure know how to create a masterpiece that doesn’t need to span and hour’s time. Clocking in at under half an hour, this album may be all you could ask for and more in your eyes, because that’s surely how I see it. This small time Pennsylvania based band from Allentown could sure use the support guys, because they are still unbelievably to me, unsigned. It should be a fucking crime that they aren’t yet, but I know they have to hit it big sometime soon with talent like this. One of driving forces that makes Enamored so unique to me as well though is amount of length their songs cover. Having death metal songs up in the nine minute range is pretty unheard of outside of Vital Remains, so this is yet another thing that makes me interested in them.

Enamored has decent sound quality here, but it could surely use some help in the drumming and distorted guitar departments as it sounds a little muddy when turned on. This is a big step up though from their last demo A Stolen Season, in which the bass drums sounded like a helicopter going off (even though the skill level was relatively close). But if you’re looking up tour dates to go see Enamored live…don’t. Not because their live shows suck, quite the opposite…just because they have changed their band name to “Bereavement”, that’s all. So if you are lucky enough to see one of their shows or even come across a copy of their album…pick it up immediately because you won’t regret it. Fans of any type of death or progressive metal should look into this for sure, I’d recommend any track from this CD for a first time listener because they are all stellar, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any track. So if you enjoy things being perfect and yet ridiculously skillful at the same time, go buy this album.