''Endarkenment'' is the eleventh studio album by British

extreme metal Extreme metal is a loosely defined umbrella term for a number of related heavy metal music subgenres that have developed since the early 1980s. It has been defined as a "cluster of metal subgenres characterized by sonic, verbal, and visual tran ...

band

Anaal Nathrakh Anaal Nathrakh are a British extreme metal band formed in 1999 in Birmingham by multi-instrumentalist Mick Kenney and vocalist Dave Hunt. They are currently signed to Metal Blade Records. The band's name is Irish for ''snake's breath'' ( anál ...

. The album was released on 2 October 2020, through

Metal Blade Records Metal Blade Records is an American independent record label founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The US office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distrib ...

. Two singles were released from the album: "Endarkenment" and "The Age of Starlight Ends". The music was recorded in

Mick Kenney Mick Kenney (born 18 January 1980) is a British musician and record producer. He gained popularity as the lead guitarist of the extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh, for which he performs under the stage name Irrumator. Career Kenney studied Il ...

's studio in

southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

, while the vocals were recorded in the band's home town of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, UK. Vocalist Dave Hunt said of the album, "I think in terms of feel, it's brighter, more open and direct than maybe we've been in the past. Obviously I don't mean it's happy-go-lucky sounding, or suggestive of a sunny disposition. I mean something more like it burns with light rather than glowers with darkness. It's coruscating." Most of the music was written by Kenney in less than a week. The title of the album is intended to represent an inversion of

enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...

values, with Hunt saying that in recent years many people have become less accepting of facts, and instead conflate them with their feelings, citing

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

and the blacklisting of

Sam Harris Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics ...

as examples. Additionally, Hunt has stated that criticism of religion has become less acceptable, and that those advocating a silencing of speech are paradoxically thinking of themselves as enlightened. Unlike most of the band's albums where lyrics are not printed, ''Endarkenment'' included partial lyrics and the context behind some songs. The original, uncensored cover art of the album is a picture of a pig's head with penises hanging out of the eye sockets, a reference to the album's fourth song, "Libidinous (A Pig with Cocks in Its Eyes)". Hunt conceived of the idea, explaining:

"The idea is basically to depict the ideal human circa 2020. The idea is older, but the depiction is as current as it ever was. We are livestock, shorn of dignity, humiliated, and blind to the reality of our predicament because all we see and care about is libidinous rubbish. And even when one of us thinks they've found something real and rears up to jab their finger at the air, it's still often oddly fetishised – you can practically see the hard on and smell the groin sweat. And all too frequently, we who observe feel that, as the saying goes, 'the stupid, it burns'. Bill Hicks once talked about culture as a sedative or diversionary tactic – 'Go back to sleep, America…'. Zappa said something similar via the metaphor of cheese. The take implicit in our cover art for 'Endarkenment' is similar, but more aggressive and embittered. As the line in one of the songs on the album goes, 'pigs with cocks in our eyes, masturbating to the end of the world'."

Track listing

Personnel

(Irrumator) – guitars, bass, drums,

drum programming Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices and computer software, such as sequencers and workstations or hardware synthesizers, sampler and sequencers, to generate sounds of musical instruments. These mus ...

, programming * Dave Hunt (V.I.T.R.I.O.L. isita Interiora Terræ Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem – vocals

References

2020 albums Anaal Nathrakh albums Metal Blade Records albums {{2020s-metal-album-stub