Enola Grey
Cabal
7.5
It's always nice to hear bands with a strong enough sense of history to look beyond their immediate peers for inspiration. Featuring ex-members of Minneapolis metalcore veterans Martyr A.D., Enola Gray sound poised to outflank the Lamb of Gods and Byzantines of the world by offering up a rock solid riff assault that strikes right at the heart of Exhorder's and Pantera's battle tested formula. Their debut E.P, Cabal, is fully representative of a band that while full of promise, still lacks some polish.
"Andover" begins sounding like a more organic Machinehead before breaking into this exhilarating Exhorder style break that makes me want to punch myself in the throat and scream SOUL SEARCH MEEEE! Rather than coming off as a haphazardly arranged homage to one of the greatest thrash bands on the planet, this section serves as a rewarding resolution to the band's groove oriented main riff set. The song also features a bridge consisting of full octave chord strumming that actually transforms this neck-fucking riff fest into an actual song. If every Enola Grey composition were this good, I might have a new favorite band. "Cold Heart Contemplation" proceeds at about twice the tempo as "Andover", but lacks the coherence. The riffs are just as good, but there's little here that actually allows them to work in conjunction to create memorable songs. The rest of the tracks, minus the slightly annoying instrumental U.I.M., proceed with similar vigor, as vocalist Mike Fisketti's soulful bark cements the Pantera/Exhorder comparison. Plenty of solid ideas abound, but each lack a certain coherence to warrant a great deal of replay.
Ultimately, the future for Enola Grey is pretty bright. In a scene full of musical cross pollination, it's at least exciting to hear a band willing to look beyond last week for inspiration. They aren't quite there just yet. As riff writers and actual performers, they have a lot going for them, but they could use some help in the arrangement department. At the very least, the material on Cabal has put Enola Grey on my radar screen.
