2007-05-09
You sit around with a few friends, have a couple of beers, and throw around ideas of how to break your urban boredom, when suddenly your guitar catches someone's eye and you find yourselves jamming in a basement which smells like it's underground for a good reason. Next thing you know – someone suggest to start a band and all that's missing is a name, but all the good ones are taken; every forceful, sinister, dark-meaning word fit to describe your hard metallic sound is taken – so after many hours, many names and a few more beers you make up your mind on "Fluid Enc.". Jamming becomes playing actual songs, playing songs becomes rehearsing songs, and soon enough rehearsing becomes performing and later recording. It's now been a year since that first forming night, and a demo is out. Another year passes and little attention is given to it. More and more crowds come to the shows, and you get the crazy idea of releasing an unplugged session, even before your debut album. You do it, and get some good responses too. The year is 2005, and finally! your debut album, "Out Unity In Downfall", is out and gets some praise, but doesn't really make you famous – the thing that really keeps you going is the crowds; the headbanging fans who go crazy at the shows and the pretty girls who go crazy after the shows…
The year is now 2007, and you release a
new demo/EP with just a taste of what you're about summed up in three songs. The first, "Living", is a good display of the kind of forceful metal people either love or can't stand; pounding drums, whetting guitar riffs with some great grooves and breaks, a nail-hammering bass line, an extremely massive Phil Ansemlo style voice, with some cleaner Sevendust-like vocals on the choruses – all add up to a very fun, yet very aggressive powertrip, kinda like a thrilling ten inversions rollercoaster ride fit only for the brave.
The second, "Only The Truth", is a malicious badass bastard with double bass, throaty thrashing grunts duetting with heartful screams and vocoder vocal lines – attempting at a true metal song, but sacrificing proper drum sound (leaving it kinda flat-out) and a balanced mix due to the DIY production.
The third, and alas – the last, track "Tribute To Your Suicide" is a grabber; guitar chugs and drum strikes are sure to get some attention, and an odd melody break marking a mellower chosen way for this one would surely raise some eyebrows. Clean verse, heavy pre-chorus, an OK chorus and a good leading melody backed by low frequency guitars dwelling around – all in hope to show a different, less-aggressive, and more thought provoking side…all that, and the story hasn't even got to its peak yet.
This may not be "the story of Fluid ENC.", this is probably more far-fudged than true, but one thing IS for sure – they're on the right way, and only a few steps away from being one of the better bands hailing from Germany.
Choosing to label themselves as "german metalcore" is, in my humble opinion, a bit of a turn off, both due to the bad reputation associated with the whole Metalcore genre, and due to the fact they don't sound like a metalcore band. This is just Metal, no addition needed, and if insisted – "German Metal". The only addition needed now is a well-produced full length, as ass-kicking as "Out Unity In Downfall" but with shinier kicking-boots.
Ofer Vayner
