You will have a hard time believing this when you hear Entrapment’s two songs, but this band appears to be a one-man project (at least for recording purposes), the one man being Michel Jonker from Groningen in The Netherlands. According to Metal-Archives, this split was preceded by three demos and a 2012 full-length album (The Obscurity Within…).
Entrapment’s music has a very different sound from Pyre’s — with a more rancid, radioactive, nails-on-the-chalkboard sound, raw like a bleeding wound. “Graves Disease” is utterly ghoulish, a dynamic, 7+ minute monster that fully justifies its length. The guitar work is rich and varied, and never less than decimating. But Jonker’s reverberating vocals may be the most memorable aspect of the song — they’re both horrifying and electrifying, evil and bestial.
The second track, “Festering Slumber”, is much shorter but no less riveting. It’s a d-beat marauder, again dominated by Jonker’s ghastly vocals and lit up from within by scalding guitar leads. Really compelling, vicious music.
I was trying to hunt a copy of this split 12”MLP for few months, but finally I got one! Hell yeah, here’s yet another really fuckin awesome piece of old styled, filthy and creepy death metal! And on this black wax we have joined forces of two bands: Pyre from Russia and Entrapment from The Netherlands! I’m a fan of both for some time, so I just had to put my hands on this vinyl. And I am damn happy to have it, as both bands did not disappoint and delivered exactly what I expected to find.
First comes Pyre. This band is a phenomenon to me. Russia – despite being such a huge country – is a shit, speaking of their metal scene and really there’s not even one single band from there, which I would like. Come one, all this pagan shit like Arkona or Alkonost is completely useless. There are also no death metal bands, which would be good… except of Pyre. This band is the first Russian band, which I truly liked and I will definitely keep to support them and have my eyes and ears open for all their future offerings. The debut MLP “Ravenous Decease” was incredibly good and now I can listen to their two new songs… And damn, they do not disappoint and I can only speak about them in superlatives. I love the production, which Pyre managed to get… A sound, which fits this kind of rough, aggressive and obscure death metal perfectly. It instantly awakes the feeling of something dark and utterly horrendous. Like some indescribable creature was hiding in the dark, lurking at you and freezing your blood, devouring your fear… Anyway… Hehe…Two excellent songs, stylistically between some Swedish acts like Repugnant, Maim, Degial, Bastard Priest and the always influential Autopsy. I love “Into the Chains” especially, oh, just listen to this opening riff in it… what a killer tune! But really, absolutely everything here sounds just right for me; it kicks ass, it is vicious and dark, it is violent but has a great feeling and is sort of memorable. Pyre rules, that’s it!
And now Entrapment. I am afraid that I still didn’t manage to put my hands on the band’s first album “The Obscurity Within...”, because I am stubborn and want to get this album only on vinyl… and the first press LP was criminally limited to barely 300 copies and not even one was left for me. Fuck, so year and a half after its release I still have not heard it. But I will, Michael promised me that “The Obscurity Within...” shall get a vinyl repress soon. I am fuckin ready for it! What is all this fuzz about? Well, Entrapment is awesome. I first got their “Crawling Morbidity” 7”EP, which was just killer and later I also bought “Irreligeous Abominations”, which turned out to be one of the best Dutch death metal releases in years. And I love many Dutch bands. So, it’s finally time to listen to some new slabs of putrid death metal. And damn, this word putrid fits this music perfectly. The sound is even more rough and filthy that on Pyre side and the same can be said about the music. It feels more messy and almost primitive, even though it probably is a bad word to be used here. But that’s mainly due to this harsh production, which gives Entrapment music almost kind of the demo / rehearsal feeling. I am not totally sure whether I like this sound in 100%, maybe the whole material feels slightly too much underdeveloped, if you know what I mean. Which doesn’t mean it is bad. The music of Entrapment has a strong Swedish death metal touch, like the melodic theme, which opens “Graves Disease” – damn, I just know this melody for years, maybe it sounds so much like old Tiamat? I like when these harmonious parts mix with more aggressive and severe riffs. Yeah, this is almost like a classic Swedish death metal demo!
So, two great bands are here. I personally liked Pyre songs this time more, they really do fuckin shred here and I give them 90/100, while Entrapment would get 70/100. The average for the whole is 80/100 then.
Sample Entrapment: https://entrapment2.bandcamp.c...
Sample Pyre: https://pyredeathmetal.bandcam...
