Enochian Crescent was founded in 1995 in Finland. ‘The Black Church’ is their 3^rd  full-length.

 

The album starts very strongly. A heavy low riff, but after a few seconds the vocalist thinks he has to begin, with the words : go go go. Ehh? Go go go? What the hell, isn’t that for punk bands? The next riff is quite different, more black metal. The first band I think about is Akercocke. Allthough the main musical influence is black metal, death metal elements are quite common on this record. The riffs on this record differ a lot. Slow pumping parts, double bass passages, melodic parts and blastbeats, you will hear it all. Just like the music, the vocals differ. But I can’t say that is always pleasant to hear. Sometimes the vocals are really good, but sometimes it really sounds horrible, like a chocking chicken, that will be the best comparison.

All the songs have their own characteristics,  I like that, but to me it does get boring because some parts of songs are just not my thing. But the band really wrote some good stuff.

My favourite song of ‘The Black Church‘ is ‘Chalk Face’, it has some real strong riffs, especially the refrain. The ‘Hail, hail, hail’ shouting parts, well, at the beginning I didn’t  know if they were cool, or misplaced. But in the end I have to admit that I like them. It has a nice ‘sing along’ refrain.

The production of this album is good, with a very clear but sinister sound, alltough the guitars sound a little thin. The atmosphere is very dark. I think Enochian Crescent did a good job on that. A nice black metal album, but the band should have a nice chat with their vocalist about some parts in my opinion. Although it is almost impossible to create something other bands never did, I think Enochian Crescent did a nice job of being different in its genre.