Enbtry 689 - Disentomb - Misery

Style: Brutal death metal

Primary Emotions/Themes: Hopelessness, despair, insurmountable heaviness sprinkled with bits of melody

Thoughts: As the years have gone on death metal has less appeal to me. It wasn't a quick transition at all, more-so it was an inevitable one. Death metal, while a fine genre lacks a lot of the nuance and atmosphere that black metal has. Too much of the genre focuses on just being heavy bludgeoning the listener with violence. While there is a place for that kind of music, it is now a minority of what I listen to within the metal genre as a whole.

Brutal death metal is even further down the path of incomprehensible violence. The breakdowns are so brutal that they remove all continues thought from me most of the time. I love listening to it in small doses, but my tolerance for this kind of music has gone way down over time. In fact I've sold off most of my brutal death metal because it just sits on my shelf, lonely and unlistened.

There are always exceptions though. Disentomb is one of those huge exceptions. Their third album - The Fading Light - is among my favorite metal albums in the last decade, and Misery is up there as well. For the longest time the only way you could get this thing was on CD. It wasn't until I randomly checked out Discogs that I found out that it had gotten pressed. Twenty minutes later I had it on order.

What makes Disentomb different? What makes them stand out and excel at their craft when I've left so many other bands behind? From what I can tell there are two things that these guys do that I'm drawn to.

First and foremost they have an absolutely massive sound. It's not just that they play loud and heavy, they have a truly monumental sound to them. It feel larger than life, truly otherworldly. Of course other bands do this as well, but that's where the second part comes in.

Disentomb has a slight hint of melody interspersed between the brutality. It's not in every song, hell it's hardly there even in the songs that contain melody. When it's there though, it's like a ray of distant sunlight piercing through insurmountable clouds and mountains. It's the one bit of sanity that my mind can hold on to during the tumultuous tidings of the remainder of the songs. 

Misery contains both of the previous elements, but make no mistake - this is 100% brutal death metal. The vocals are guttural and completely incomprehensible. The riffs are heavier than a ten ton weight, the drums are completely out of control and sound like an artillery strike.  Every staple of the genre is here, there is just a little bit more than most bands.

Disentomb are truly in the elite when it comes to brutal death metal. There is no other band that does this genre the way they do. There are other elite bands, but these guys stand alone in their craft. Now they just need to hurry the fuck up and release that new album I keep hearing about.

Written February 2nd 2024