NAME:Enos
FROM:Brighton, UK
FOR FANS OF: Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Pink Floyd
LATEST RELEASE: 'Chapter One'
CHECK OUT THESE TRACKS: 'Take Off', 'Back to Earth'
WHERE TO FIND THEM:Website, Bandcamp, Facebook, LastFM, MySpace

Spending your life trawling the internet for new bands can lead to you missing some stone cold gems right on your doorstep. The stoner/doom scene in the UK has been picking up momentum for a while now, and down here in Brighton a lot of people speak highly about Enos. Their 2010 debut is a great big chunk of 70’s tinged stoner rock, with a grainy yet slightly psychedelic sound that references everyone from Hawkwind to Kyuss.

The album 'Chapter One' is a 35-minute, 5-track monster (available for free download) with an excellent full-size comic telling the band's version of story of the titular Enos the Chimp – the first chimp in space (true story – ask the internet, kids!).

I caught up with the Chris,(guitars/vocals) Sean (guitar) and Sparky (drums) in a local pub for a chat and a couple of beers:

Tell us about Enos.

Chris: “There’s a great scene for stoner and doom here. There are a lot of bands concentrating so much on the heavy side, which is great but you do lose some of the dynamics. I think we have one foot in stoner and doom and one foot in the classic rock scene. The idea is to keep people engaged. If you want to go full-bore, then great. But you’ve got to build up to it. If you can do something really clever like finger tapping triplets or whatever, then it’s a lot more impressive if you don’t do it all the time, otherwise you just get acclimatised to it and it loses it’s impact.

“Replicating the physical punch is the most important thing to us. Getting that wall of noise. I think there’s this arse-about-face idea that heaviness is all about loads of gain. If you get the tone right you can play clean and still knock someone bollocks off.”

What did you do in terms of production for this album?

Chris: “When we sent our record off to be mastered we asked them to treat it as if it was going to vinyl and was going to be released 40 years ago. We want it to sound as natural as possible. That’s why we have lossless formats on the album downloads. You don’t want to spend hours tweaking sounds, and then lose them all in some shitty 128kbps mp3.”

What’s next?

Chris: “A fair chunk is written. The second record is going to a certain degree follow the trajectory from the comic book. So it’s going to be a fair bit darker and more hefty. The comic book won’t be in space, so the sounds won’t be as spacey. We just need to sit down and work out how everything comes together. A lot of thought has to go into how one song goes into the next. We’re aiming to record for Feb/ March.”

Sean: “But y’know life and money get in the way.”

Sparky: “We’re not living that blind, rock-star dream that we’re ever going to make money from this. You want to record you’ve got to find the money to pay for that!”

ENOS Chapter 1 is available now for absolutely free download from the Enos' bandcamp as well as right here, where it includes the free comic, so you have no excuse for not checking it out!

You can catch them live at Green Door Store Brighton December 19 (with Sea Bastard, Slabdragger and Grind the Enemy) with FREE ENTRY.