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Ehnahre, "Taming the Cannibals"
I try to avoid using the word "challenging" in regards to music—it is typically either a dumb exaggeration, or simply untrue. In this case, however, "challenging" is not only entirely appropriate, but perhaps an understatement. Ehnahre play dissonant, cerebral music that is rooted in death metal, but also throws the rulebook out the window; their latest album is all the more appealing for its inaccessibility.
Admittedly, I don't find myself at all engaged by traditional death metal, which is perhaps why I find this album so refreshing. Taming the Cannibals is, at its heart, an avant-garde death metal album. It downplays the standard tropes of the genre—masturbatory guitar playing, tired blast beats, Cookie Monster vocals—and replaces them with a number of twists and unexpected developments.
The first song, aptly named "The Clatterbones," kicks off with a drum solo reminiscent of a free jazz percussionist playing maniacally on a skeleton. When the guitar riffs come in, they are not virtuosic statements of aptitude, but atonal, slow motion riffs reminiscent of Khanate's first recordings. Intense segments are surrounded by empty space and creepy ambience, courtesy of C. Spencer Yeh's screeching violin and Greg Kelley's trumpet. Any semblance of traditional, structured songwriting is cast aside in favor of improvisational drum playing (truly the album's anchor) and static, black-ambient meltdowns between songs. The vocals are not merely a tribute to Sesame Street's foremost cookie enthusiast; they sound genuinely anguished, tormented.
I have hardly any complaints about Taming the Cannibals: the only thing that strikes me as out of place is the brief, spoken-word segment that closes "Foehn (Lullaby)." Otherwise, Ehnahre sound like they are playing by their own rules throughout the album, charging headfirst through seemingly improvisational songs that draw from death, black and doom metal, yet end up sounding like only themselves. This is metal at its most deconstructed, unconventional and challenging—a big "fuck you" to conventional death metal and, perhaps, any type of traditional heavy music.
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