Band:	Enthral
Album:	Subterranean Movement
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	June 2003

01. Earth Left Behind
02. Death Immaculate
03. Inject Hate
04. Subterranean Movement
05. Our Justice Be Done
06. To The Bone
07. Slaves Of One Tongue
08. Charge Of The I

Something lacking in the black metal arena are bands that aren't afraid of incorporating groovy elements and really pulling from their ancestral thrash roots. Cue Enthral.

Subterranean Movement is an excellent look into the earliest influences of what later became black metal's renowned and notorious second wave, but focusing more on the origins of those influences rather than the by-products. Imagine setting out to release an album that pays homage to the combined efforts of Slayer and Immortal, then adding hints of that chunky, bass-heavy old school death metal, and you'll have a fairly good representation of this album. It's not exactly instant classic material, but tracks such as "Our Justice Be Done" and "Slaves Of One Tongue" stand the test of time and would surely be greeted with open arms by either of those aforementioned influences.

While Enthral rest on their black metal laurels during moments where songs seem to run out of steam, with rip-saw riffing and chaotic blasting drums, most of the songs are set up in order to display guitarist Gunnhild Bratset's individual skill with his instrument, whose proficiency is in itself a talking point worthy of reviewing. Unfortunately, the songwriting suffers from being convoluted by so many contradictory ideas, as a slew of different directions make themselves apparent simultaneously, pulling the listener apart from being able to spend enough time familiarizing themselves with every stylistic choice. The songs simply aren't given enough space to breathe. You won't often catch me calling for adding run time to an album, but this is an instance where the meat could have really used some fat, if only to guide each transition more smoothly, as opposed to the jarring drifts they decided on here.

The tuning and techniques are casually reminiscent of early Deathspell Omega and Dissection at times, but these bands are not in any way atmospherically (or vocally) comparable. Enthral is far too on-the-nose as a unit to delve into the complexity of establishing ambience, but their efforts are nonetheless worth investigating for casual or die-hard black metal fans. Subterranean Movement is an album any black metal band would be proud to claim as one of their own, but its glaring flaws hindered it from achieving greater glory. Here's to yet another album that could see the masterpiece-marked door at the top of the stairs, but just couldn't make it past the final set.