Rating: 7.2

Country: Bulgaria

Release Date: 2006

Record Label: Grindethic Records/Butchery Music

Track list:
1. Smashed Brain Collection
2. Carnal Affection [mp3]
3. Experiment with You
4. Disgruntled
5. Total Zombie Domination
6. Mutant
7. Supporting the Chaos and Hate
8. Graveyard [mp3]
9. Awaiting the Death


Band Website: Enthrallment

Enthrallment - Smashed Brain Collection

Plam Bakardjiev - Vocals
Chris Hristov - Guitar
Lachez Todorov - Bass
Ivo Ivanov - Drums

This is the debut album from up-and-coming Bulgarian deathsters Enthrallment, incorporating "Graveyard" from the Burning Fields 2001 EP and eight newer tracks. It is an unyielding and tightly delivered effort that ploughs the field of that familiar US brutal style but takes the technicality down a notch for a balanced emulation of crushing flavours.  

The primary source of inspiration for these resolute maniacs is the pre-Vile era of Cannibal Corpse and this can lead to both success and failure. Tracks like "Experiment with You" or "Mutant" are linear unexciting historical repetitions but better tracks hit the mark because of the smooth augmentation of the core ethic with subtle speed and style variations. "Supporting the Chaos and Hate" twitches agitatedly like early Deicide before trills are fused with slamming Suffocation. The intro to "Carnal Affection" grabs you by the throat as suddenly as Suffocation's "Funeral Inception" and doesn't let go.  

Vocalist Plam is diverse in his delivery, sounding like a Benton/Mullen/Barnes hybrid stressing a personality splinter at appropriate times. Thunderous gutteral Demilich vocals also make cameo appearances (e.g. "Total Zombie Domination"). All the while the fingerstyle bass rumbles on audibly and menacingly.  

Above all else though, it is the ability of Enthrallment to create an array of fierce high energy grooves that lifts them above clone status. Some are a delight, throwing Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Suffocation and Napalm Death into a mixer and somehow coming out with super-catchy but aggressive riffs that could define their identity in future. The superb drumming performance shines through during these moments, which makes it more of a shame that the hi-hat hisses like a reptile and the kicks sound like hailstones hitting an asbestos roof. It would be easy to snort and shrug your shoulders about a band like this initially, but Enthrallment have the stench of something festering and waiting to release its spores throughout Europe and beyond.

December 6th, 2006