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Review: Divina Enema - Under Phoenix Phenomenon
Divina Enema
www.divinaenema.com
Under Phoenix Phenomenon

Label: Great White North Records
Year released: 2002
Duration: 70:34
Tracks: 12
Genre: Gothic Metal

Rating:
0/5


Review online: August 4, 2003
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
Readers' Rating
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Rated 2.5/5 (50%) (14 Votes)
Review

Somebody owes me for this one. If you have not already read my review of this band's previous effort, go read it now, and then come back to this, I'll wait. Done? OK. This is the second offense against music committed by Divina Enema, the worst band in the entire world, and their hard work and progression must be noted – this is even worse than their last CD.

I don't even know what kind of metal to call this. It's so all over the place and so utterly wretched it becomes totally unclassifiable. Apparently deciding their pseudo-goth was not horrible enough, Divina Enema have added industrial, funk and – wait for it – swing music to their already train-wreck-like sound. As you can imagine, this elevates the absolute worthlessness of their sound to something that transcends awful, something so bad it becomes not only hilarious but almost profound. This is not the sort of bad that happens by accident, or simply through ineptitude. This is a level of awfulness that can only be reached with real effort.

The production on this album is much better than on the previous "At the Conclave", but that's like saying "This German shit video has a much clearer picture than the last one." Better production does nothing to help the stumbling mess at hand here. Once again the songwriting is so haphazard and shapeless as to seem the product of genuine insanity or severe mental retardation, sequeing from hammering nu-metal style guitar grooves to gothy synth slices of tedium followed by funky basslines or god-save-us lounge-music crooning. And speaking of the vocals, let me point out once again how gut-wrenchingly hideous the vocals here are. They are more uniform than on the last record, but that doesn't help. A midrange nasal whine is the predominant style here, reminiscent of a fatally injured Billy Corgan, but we must not discount the equally dreadful falsetto screeching that peppers this album like a choir of muppet Bee Gees. Keep telling yourself 'there are no chicks in this band, no matter what it sounds like', because there are not, no matter how the off-key gay piping makes it sound like there is. Again, the vocals are carried out with a painful disregard for tone, key, or meter. 'Bleating' would be a good description, 'Yammering' would be another.

No matter how I try, words cannot possibly convey how transcendently horrible this really is. A band of chimpanzees could quite literally produce a more entertaining and coherent album. This is a degree of wretchedness only attainable with real dedication. This is like antimusic, as if someone were trying to make the worst possible music imaginable. I cannot believe that anyone has ever liked this music, but somebody must because there has been money spent to record and distribute this, and this is their second CD! As if any human being could possibly want to hear another song by this worthless band ever again. Only someone whose critical sense has become so jaded as to be actually calcified would for a moment assume that because this sounds horrible, they must not be "getting it". There's nothing to 'get' here. This is the worst shit you ever heard, stay away.

More about Divina Enema...
Review: At The Conclave (reviewed by Sargon the Terrible)
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