Band:	Inimical
Album:	Fucked Up Beyond All Recogntion
Style:	Death metal, Metalcore
Website:	http://www.inimical.dk
Release date:	2008

01. Hatred Breeds Hatred
02. Emptied Of Life
03. Another War
04. Remnants Of A Black Soul
05. False Prophets
06. Ugly

For the elephants out there who remember well over a year ago reading about the last demo of Danish metallers Inimical, they are back and one more step up the ladder of bandhood. "Fucked Up Beyond Recognition" is the title of the band's first E.P. that sits in with six tracks totalling twenty minutes. Once again the band present themselves in the most professional of manner with a nicely presented case with inlay and lyrics.

Of the musical style of the band not much as changed apart from they are generally more of what they were before. They are still predominantly a death metal band, just, but this time more and more hardcore elements find their way into the music in the form of either the odd guitar riff or the growing number of breakdowns. As the band has grown they most certainly have also grown musically, Inimical sound like a very competent band on CD and hold themselves together well.

This is death metal but on a knife-edge of the world of deathcore, which appears to be an environment of either love or hate. Of deathcore bands, there are plenty of very commercially successful bands and Inimical just do not come within the league of writing songs to such the contemporary and catchy standards that is required to break into some kind of deathcore mainstream.

Although the songs on this E.P. are generally solid, from a deathcore perspective it all sounds rather average. There is no explosive intensity portrayed in the recordings and no particularly catchy riffs or choruses to attract and hook people. From a death metal point of view we do have some nice drumming with the odd double bass and a few blastbeats thrown in there, albeit nothing particularly impressive compared to the incredibly high standards of today's metal. Also the breakdowns just seem to hinder the healthy flow of the otherwise consistent and concrete performance.

Perhaps Inimical tried to be two things at once and as a result didn't come out on top either side. "Fucked Up Beyond Recognition" is a good CD, it is a testament to the growth of the musicians involved, but overall lacks the spark needed to make an impression on any large amount of people. From here either the band launches full-blooded into creating an even more intense death metal, or makes a leap of faith towards focusing on the more -core aspects, as at the moment Inimical seem to be in somewhat of a musical no-man's-land.

Even though the focus here may have seemed towards the negative side, Inimical are a hard working band and their music and whole CD presentation oozes with determination to make something of themselves. Relatively speaking they are still a young band without a full-length album and have made the right decision to try and find their feet first before putting one out. Who knows the direction the band will take, but whichever way it is they will put in the hard graft to make the most of it.