Enterprise Earth continues its ascent.
Since 2014, the american band driven by Dan Watson (vocals, ex-Infant Annihilator), Gabe Mangold (guitar) and Brandon Zackey (drums) unveil us The Chosen, its fourth album.
We begin with Where Dreams Are Broken, a song the band chose to represent its album before the release. Aside from extreme violence, modern effects walking with the rhythmic and possessed howlings, the vocalist unveils as surprising as intense clean vocals, then Reanimate // Disintegrate comes to crush us with syncopated riffs. The song’s heaviness perfectly sticks the trio’s ravaging intensity, and they also integrate very groovy and hooking elements to this mysterious track, then Unleash Hell allows us a brief moment of respite before they let the storm restart stronger. The band adds more complex parts to its raw violence just like on I Have To Escape, striking with a monstrously hooking and aggressive rhythmic. The sound is incredibly powerful, allowing the vocalist to be fully unleashed while majestic orchestration appears. The Tower comes to feed the mysterious tones while offering a moment to breathe, then They Have No Honor will literally explode to our face while offering a threatening blackness between raging riffs. Once again, vocal parts are quite diversified but very expressive, and we feel riffs pick into more Old School influences, in opposition to Overpass which creates a veil of oppression. The introduction remains quite melodic, then the flood of intensity suddenly comes out accompanied by voices, which will haunt us between melancholy and incisive leads on the whole song, before letting place to You Couldn’t Save Me and its boiling rage. Whether the first part of the song stays into this mesmerizing mystical aspect, fastness and effectiveness are out for the rest of it, and it will finish with a hellish moshpart. Unhallowed Path’s softness allows us to sober up before Legends Never Die blows us away. The song easily melts all the band’s influences, letting brutality meet quite poetic lyrics and seizing orchestrations, while My Blood, Their Satiation feed worrying sonorities again. The alliance of fury, vocals and those dark elements is extremely heady while leaving a bit of suspense, but Skeleton Key will be more straightforward. Shaped for the stage, the composition multiplies moshparts and breaks for a peak of effectiveness, leaving complexity to The Chosen, the eponymous track. Melodic dissonance, impressive orchestrations and extreme violence meet very Prog elements with clean vocals before flooding us with this furious rage, which will end when Atlas, the last song, comes. Keyboards and guitars join forces for an final fix of intensity before the album ends.
Enterprise Earth played Deathcore, but it’s over. With The Chosen, the band continues the progression begun with their two previous releases, strengthening their violent basis with majestic, intense and thoughtful elements. Different but confident, the Americans released their best album to date.
95/100