Review by Krys on August 6, 2001.

If playing in Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal wasn’t enough, Erik Rutan started his own recording studio (Dimensional Sound Studios), became a producer and decided to start a next project called Alas. When do you sleep, man??? Actually... I think that because of lack of sleep we have the weirdest, most unique dark and atmospheric record that’s out there.

No wonder Erik himself called this album “the most deepest and difficult record yet”. Morbid Angel or Hate Eternal are the melodic, easy listening bands compared to Alas and “Absolute Purity” is nothing you might expect from it. If because of Erik’s correlation with Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal you think you’d get some quality death metal, forget about it. Or if you remember Martina Astner’s voice from Therion and you were awaiting beautiful harmonic melodies, forget about that too.

This is the most ‘disharmonic’ piece of music I’ve heard to date. There are parts, actually a lot of them, where Martina is singing however she wants without even listening to Erik’s guitar and vice versa. Sounds interesting? Hell yeah, first time I played this CD in my player I thought I got a bad copy with unfinished arrangements but amazingly it all started to make sense with every spin. This man is simply incapable of writing a bad music. Complex and technical riffs combined with Martina’s musically un-adhesive, but still sweet voice, may sound abnormal to many fans but everyone into the dark side of metal will love it.

And one more thing, “Absolute Purity” is not something you just start playing while you go do something else, you have to really concentrate while listening to this album. Even better, put on the headphones and let them take you to your deepest and darkest parts of your mind. You won’t regret it.

Bottom Line: Can you imagine that with all those aberrant and unmatching music layers I remember those melodies and I even caught myself singing one? Weird.

Ratting: 8 out of 10

Review by Alex on September 7, 2020.

Set for a September 18th release through Redefining Darkness, is Enwretch's first real effort as a death metal project, Sermon of the Dead. This project from United Kingdom has already nailed the sound of what you'd expect to hear coming from the region. From cavernous growling, to a rumbling production, the base necessities are fulfilled on this demo comprised of a mere 2, yet enjoyable pieces.

'Vile Congregation' commences the ceremony with a doomy buildup that explodes into a mid-paced lap. I say "lap" because of how similar the opening track is to the final, 'Anthropophagy'. They both utilize identical structured main riffs and rhythms that'd make you believe one track was seemingly split into two parts. Either way, both possess enough promise for what could potentially become one of many entities within the avenue of quality death metal.

I was made to understand that Enwretch began as 2 friends playing music together during the pandemic and it really does sound as such. There's inexperience to be heard, yet all the while, there lies signaling possibility for development into something more noteworthy. It'll be interesting to hear what else comes from Enwretch should the project continue. For now, what is created here should suffice.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10