UMUR "At the Conclave" is the debut full-length studio album by Belarus, Minsk based avant garde/progressive metal act Divina Enema. The album was released through the Canadian label Great White North Records (or rather through subdivisions of the label) in 2000. Divina Enema was formed by lead vocalist Yaroslav A. Burakoff in 1998.

Stylistically the material on the 6 track, 46:28 minutes long album is a very eclectic type of metal. Avant garde/progressive metal probably isn´t the worst description of the music, but of course such a description should be explained a bit more in detail. It´s overall a highly theatrical form of music with elements from goth, black, death, progressive, and symphonic metal. In addition to guitars, bass, drums, and vocals, the instrumentation also includes piano/keyboards, violin, cello, and tenor-sax. Lead vocalist Yaroslav A. Burakoff has a varied vocal arsenal to say the least. He often sings in a high pitched voice, which is quite similar in style to the high pitched singing by King Diamond, but he also uses a deeper goth type vocal style, and both death metal growling and black metal screaming. His phrasing is theatrical/paatos filled and his vocals are probably what you´d call an aquired taste. But no one can take away from him, that he is an incredibly skilled singer.

The rest of the band are well playing too. The tracks are all relatively long and go through many transitions/structural changes and even after many spins they can be a bit hard to tell apart. "At the Conclave" feels a lot like listening to one long track with many different sections and changes. And it is in the songwriting department where I think Divina Enema lacks a bit. They are obviously skilled composers, but I don´t think the music is particularly memorable. The fact that the sound production isn´t the most powerful either (the drums feature an odd tone, and the guitars lack punch) isn´t helping the album either. So upon conclusion "At the Conclave" is what I´d characterize as an interesting album, but not a great album. Still there are enough quality here to warrant a 3 star (60%) rating.

Doomster It's actually not THAT bad... But it still sucks pretty hard. Now, I might just be called out as an "ELITEZT" or "U CAN'T UNDERSTND DIFFERENT MUSIK" person for this review. Well, I'm not either of those. I listen to plenty of weird music...The Melvins, Khanate, Sunn O))), Boris, Lustmord, I could go on. And of course this album is different. In fact, Belarus act Divina Enema have crafted one of the most original concepts I have heard in the past year or so. However, it's this band's weirdness that gets them hated worldwide. I'm here to tell you that they are honestly not THAT bad, but they are still pretty gag-worthy.

Divina Enema play in a totally unclassifiable style. One minute they're avant-garde, the other pop, and the next swing music. Now, I usually like complicated music, but this is just so all over the place that it just becomes an absolute mess. Are you metal? Pop? Country? Make up your mind.

Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of Divina Enema are their vocals. They are these absolutely awful, awful out of tune falsetto screeching "singing". After listening to the vocal sound in "The Face Of Oranus" I literally had a galric-y taste in my mouth - it's really that bad. In fact, these vocals suck so hard that it leads me to believe that the band were making them intentionally humorous, just to see how impossibly terrible they could be. Well, if that was their goal, they definetely succeeded. If it wasn't, may God have mercy on the.

The music isn't much better. The drumming sounds like the drummer merely got a few sticks from his yard and started lightly tapping on the snare drum. Again, it's not as bad as Lars Ulrich's drumming on the God awful "St. Anger", but it's not much better than that. At least this guy's drumming isn't as loud as a nursery school crying over the sounds of fireworks. The guitars...oh God, these actually sound akin to the album cover - a bunch of green farmers, on a farm, carrying something. This sounds like something they would listen to. Well, Divina Enema at least hit that spot on.

The bass is nonexistent, so I won't go into detail about that.

The only reason "Under Pheonix Phenomenon" gets anything more than a big fat .5 rating is because, well, Divina Enema have talent. As vague as it may sound, there is definetely something in the hearts and minds of these guys that lusts to make good music - they're talent is just buried far, far beneath the awful falsetto screeching, out of tune guitars, and just plain annoying drumming. They are a talented bunch, and they make very original music, but absolutely fail to construct a listenable song. Somewhere a hipster is loving this, no doubt about that, but for me and most other people's opinions, "Under Pheonix Phenomenon" is a laughable failed experiment. Avoid this unless you enjoy seventy-minutes of unrelenting prejudice towards your ears.