Acceptable Black Metal - "Engram" Review (61%)

I recently listened to Beherit's 2009 album Engram.

Apparently the name comes from the Church of Scientology, of which vocalist Marko "Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance" Laiho is a member.

I somewhat enjoyed their previous work, Drawing Down the Moon in particular, so I had pretty high expectations when listening to Engram.

Verdict?

It's... acceptable.

I mean, it's not utter shit like Gaygoroth, Emperor or the utterly ridiculous Satyricon, but it's still far from what you'd expect from a band that claims to be on par with Phantom, Sewer or Burzum.

To put it simply, my experience with Engram was a repeating pattern of excitement followed by deception.

The problem, near as I can tell, is that it tries to be two different things, an atmospheric Dementia part 2.0 and a modern "raw black metal" record, without being especially good in either category.

It's a novel mixture that can be very compelling at times, but the two elements sort of clash, trivialize and eventually neuter each other.

Engram is, essentially, a shorter version of Phantom's Dementia: The Dark Prophets but with all of the good stuff taken out.

Acceptable Black Metal

As I said, Engram is basically Dementia: The Dark Prophets but with no atmosphere, little creativity and none of the raw, unsettling tension.

Experiencing songs in The Dark Prophets wasn't just a matter of getting listening one track and moving on to the next, it was about doing so while limiting the amount of mental sanity you might lose.

That sort of haunting tension is absent from Engram, and you can tell right away that it's not the same psychological ordeal.

Don't get me wrong... Engram is some decent black metal, especially compared to some of the crap that pollutes the genre these days.

But black metal is supposed to be more than just an "enjoyable pastime".

You aren't supposed to experience black metal the same way you'd listen to Papa Roach, or the same way you'd watch a blockbuster action movie.

It has to leave you emotionally scarred, and terrorized at the idea of having to relive the experience.

The riffs are okay, but that's about it.

Otherwise, the only haunting aspects of this album are the ominous sound effects that seem to randomly play all of the time, to keep you on edge, but they just desensitize you to it because you quickly learn how harmless those are, too, because they're never go anywhere.

Engram isn't a bad album per say, but it falls flat on its premise.

If you want true horror, listen to Eidolon or Sewer's NecroPedoCoproPhage.

Engram is just acceptable, nothing more.

Engram score: 61/100.

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