Enemymine
The Ice in Me
Up Records

CD Review by Reed Jackson

Goethe once memorably remarked somewhere that architecture was frozen music. Which begs the question: If Enemymine's tonal unleashings were submerged in a vat of good old liquid nitrogen, what kind of structure would result? Judging from the black hole heaviness and feral quickness of The Ice in Me, an Enemymine enclosure would reduce The House of Usher to a day in Disneyland.

Enemymine unhesitatingly embrace the darkest side of life with every ounce of power they command. Recognizing the immense potential for bone-melting heaviness which two bass guitars possess, Mike and Ryan employ an array of confounding tunings and cacophonous distortion and just let shit roar. Coupled with the abraded screaming of the vocals and the sharp pummeling of the drums, Enemymine wield a sound will make babies cry give nightmares to the naive populace. Those with squeamish souls beware.

What's most impressive (and frightening) about this Olympia band is that despite the efforts of the press to minimize heavy music, Enemymine remain inexplicable. The three members don't have the long haired, Satan-worshiping image (a la Slayer) nor the nearly self-parodying squall of bands like Napalm Death or Assuck to excuse their sound. (And let's not even get into the swelled-chest bravado and testosterone strutting of Nu-Metal, that's a whole 'nother rant.) The unassuming normality of Mike, Dan and Ryan, render the ferocity of their output even more disturbing.

The songs on Ice summon an atmosphere of existential anger, a reaction to gazing into the black void that rears between every human being. Channeling all the fear and hurt lingering from collapsed love and other imploded attempts to bridge that gulf, songs like "Inverted Circle" flail and lash amid storms of pure, pent-up rage. It is an anger that cannot be mediated by imagery or diluted by excess. Enemymine have wreslted their art straight from the false, blank arms of human life. And in doing so, they have given meaning to what otherwise would be an empty joke. As Malory said simply of the mountain that killed him, Enemymine give vent to such feeling because "it is there."

Remarkably, Enemymine find room for subtlety as well, adding stark near-jazz flourishes and complex time signatures. These technical embellishments not only impart an innovative edge to Ice, they also lend greater impact to the elemental heaviness, as in the lacerating final track "Cocoon." By tempering their tempestuous flights with intelligence and restraint, Enemymine successfully summon what Lorca called "the black sounds which make art a power, not a construct."

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