Published on Nov 9, 2001
Enforce, a quartet from Austrailia, has been around for a few
years. The band’s guitarist/vocalist, Guy Bell, sent me
Premonition, their self-released tape a few years ago, so to
say I’m familiar with the band’s sound is a true statement.
That said, this CD took longer to get into than the
aforementioned
Premonition, which was firmly rooted in thrash metal. What
threw me for a loop on
Campfire Night were the sections that sounded “so familiar”
that were offset by non-thrash sections, like the interlude in
“Brutal.” This section begins with a groove drumbeat from Graeme
Stone before turning into death metal and Guy’s powerful vocals
turning to a growl and the guitars turning into a “how fast can we
play” chops demonstration.
So what you end up with is Enforce competing with itself: it
gives you death metal that you’ve heard before, so they have to
throw in interesting thrash metal to bring back your attention. So,
when the band is thrashing out, like in the title track, I get the
sense the band is comfortable with this new identity of mixing the
death and thrash genres together, as if playing 100% thrash wasn’t
enough – that they had to open their wings to fly to higher
ground.
That’s admirable, but it doesn’t really work if your death metal
sections sound familiar, not to the point you can say, “This is
from the last Immortal CD” or anything specific. You just feel like
you’ve heard it before. That feeling starts with the very cliche
theme of nuclear war with a track called (you guessed it) “Nuclear
War.” I kept waiting for the band to do something different, to go
beyond the anti-nuclear war anthems of the 80s metal explosion.
Lyrically, I was disappointed in the chorus declaration “Fuck you
and your nuclear war!”, hardly what I would call “mind-inspiring”
quality. The death metal music beneath this chorus and Bell’s
growling turned me off of this song. The last verse, though,
redeems itself with these graphic lyrics:”A burned out soldier in a
ruined world/ People panic and perish, tormented by death/ a
country under seige dominated by fear/ governments ruled by chaos
murder and war.”
Second track “As Death Sets In” carries on the same theme of the
chorus of “Nuclear War” with blast beats and growling. Campfire
Night quickly turns into not the most awe-inspiring 45 minutes ever
pressed to CD. The intro to “Slayer” with a slow power chord
opening and hi-hats keeping time when the guitar isn’t dangling,
then a death metal blast beat from Stone takes over. Forty-five
seconds into the song, a thrashy guitar riff is punctuated with
caught cymbal accents. Slayer did that in the 80s. Still, there are
true moments of “Wow.” I really like the guitar riff during from
1:56-2:05. The riff is original sounding, where as the part from
2:46-2:56 sounds like something I’ve heard before.
As much as it pains me to say this, I didn’t really care for
this release. It seems like the band, in their transformation,
hasn’t fleshed out their songs to the degree that they should.
There are more “moments” or short passages I liked, rather than
complete songs. The first 20 seconds of “Stalker” have my
attention, but then the song turns into a “I’ve heard this before”
death song. The accent pattern from the :47-:57 mark is just “so
familiar.”
I can tell the musicians in this band are talented, but it feels
like they haven’t put together a CD that truly showcases their
talent from start to finish.