Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Amenta, The - n0n (2008)

I love this album as much as the rest of the album trilogy in The Amenta's initial run. No one can deny the masterful industrial death metal brutality. Not many bands can make such an achievement in sound. Expect a lot of industrial twists and turns! The band can bring the extremeness up to intense levels, though it's not as much of a completely devastating assault as their debut Occasus. This is because with their second album n0n, the samples and noises are more apparent after being hinted in the debut. This somewhat different sound is the best definition of a futuristic Hell. The blend of industrial machinery and metal destruction hits hard like a motherf***er, and h*ll, even Fear Factory's debut Soul of a New Machine can't reach that height.

Earlier on, the debut was just straight-up brutal. Here we have more of the f***ing eerie keys of Timothy Pope that sound so haunting and noise-ridden. Holy sh*t, he's good! He and the other band members are responsible for making n0n the monstrous masterpiece it is. The music is so well-constructed, with not much melodic harmony to let extreme dissonance shine. The keyboards actually bring more impact to the sound, and without it, the destruction would be unbalanced. It's all about the atmosphere to go with the heaviness for a killer blend.

"On" turns the album on with an ambient noise intro. "Junky" begins the inhuman variety of deathly dissonance and occasional doomy atmosphere, transforming from one side to another. F***ing h*ll, the guitars are top-notch and out of this world! "Vermin" is another f***ing monster. It takes some time to patience to actually dig this kind of chaos, and when you do, it's all worth the experience. The vicious vocals ranging between growls, screams, and whispers are so haunting! "Entropy" is a short interlude.

The perfect "Slave" has some killer guest vocals by Nergal of Behemoth. Then we have "Wh*re" and more of the insane atmosphere. "Spine" continues the powerful variety. "Skin" is another interlude with some spoken word, and the music is f***ing insane as always.

"Dirt" levels up the keyboard focus a bit and even has some melody. That's the kind of atmosphere that isn't highly present in the band's debut. One more interlude with more of Timothy's synths is "Atrophy". The haunting atmosphere reaches its peak in "Cancer". So horrifically awesome! Then we have the most twists in the oddly titled final epic "Rape", which starts chaotic in the first 3 minutes, then quiets down before some doomy melancholy in the heavy riffs and melody. D*mn, what a soothing yet brutal way out!

Is there anything more extreme than this band's industrial blackened death metal sound? Probably, but the point is, you haven't heard the most experimental twists around until your ears meet this brutal offering that is n0n. The underrated saga of The Amenta continues!

Favorites: "Junky", "Vermin", "Slave", "Spine", "Cancer", "Rape"