ALBUM REVIEW: The Bleakness Of Our Constant – Eneferens
Jordi Apedaile is a man with an insatiable appetite for creating music. Since his departure from the atmospheric black metal band ARKHERON THODOL back in 2015 he has written, recorded and released two albums as ENEFERENS, The Inward Cold and In The Hours Beneath (both conceived and released within three months of each other in 2016), an EP, Eventide, in 2017 and has now signed off on his third full length release The Bleakness Of Our Constant.
Opening track Leaves serves as a grand introduction to the rest of the album. The haunting, echoed layers of guitar create a solemn atmosphere before giving way to waves of distortion and intelligent lead guitar runs. There is an incredibly well written guitar solo in the middle of the wall of sound that proves just how much technical prowess the multi-instrumentalist Apedaile has with his first weapon of choice. Using the solo to tell a tale rather than to simply show off how many notes he can string together in a short space of time like so many other metal guitarists do. The only downfall of this song is the way that it ends in such an unimaginative way. The song simply stops mid gallop, almost like someone who has forgotten what they had to say mid-sentence and leaves the listener a little confused after investing so much in the grandiose opener.
The Onward Reach takes on an entirely different sound from the outset and comes across as a standard black metal song with the frantic drum work and tremolo riffing. The death metal vocals on display here are performed to a high standard but it feels like they have been watered down by the amount of effects that are used and how they are drowned in the mix to the point where it sounds like they are being recorded in the middle of a cavern. This issue is rectified however by the beautiful clean singing section after the guitar solo that is not too dissimilar to that of OPETH‘s commander and chief Michael Akerfeldt and adds another layer of melody to proceedings. This is certainly a tool that Aperdaile should put to use a lot more often. The clean guitar part that follows is another welcome addition and once again shows the impressive range of influence and style that is at this young man’s disposal.
The song Awake begins with a superb acoustic guitar part. The well written riff and perfectly captured tone of the instrument pair up together to create one of the real highlights of the album. Once again the vocal performance here steals the show and will sends chills down the spines of even the most hardened of listeners. This song is an example of the calibre of song writing that ENEFERENS are capable of and should be utilised a lot more in the future. On the other hand, the inclusion of the track 11:34 is a little frustrating as it not only breaks up the flow of the album, it also wastes run time and when you bear in mind that it is one of only seven total tracks it feels like you are being a little cheated here.
Album closer Selene begins with a ukulele riff, which is an interesting new development. Unfortunately though the moment is fleeting and soon the song is thrown back in to another bloated, heavily layered guitar section with a solo that would have been a much better addition to proceedings if it hadn’t have been recorded to sound so incredibly compressed almost as if it is has been copied and pasted in which rather detracts from the overall feel. The same has to be said about the drum beat that is used in the verses of the song, making it feel as though the album has been recorded in someone’s bedroom as opposed to a proper recording studio. Unfortunately the copy and paste method appears to be a running theme in this song. The different sections of the piece do flow seamlessly and feel as though they are a combination of different ideas that were floating around the busy mind of Aperdaile and have been simply thrown together. With that being said this song has one of the real highlights of The Bleakness Of Our Constant within it and that is the black metal styled clean vocal passage in the middle section which is as haunting and well written as anything that bands such as DIMMU BORGIR achieved back in their heyday.
Overall this album succeeds in the sense that it shows that there is plenty to build on going forward for the young musician/songwriter. The Bleakness Of Our Constant has some wonderful moments and ideas aplenty. There are so many impressive sections in the album that could have been moulded in to fully fledged songs in their own right and perhaps with some other band mates included in the writing process with other points of view they could have been developed further. It is just unfortunate that there is a large amount of panning to do to discover some of the gold that is hidden within these tracks.
Rating: 6/10
The Bleakness Of Our Constant is out now via Nordvis Produktion (Europe) and Bindrune Recordings (North America).
Like ENEFERENS on Facebook.