Band:	Ethereal Blue
Album:	Essays In Rhyme On Passion & Ethics
Style:	Atmospheric death metal
Release date:	June 14, 2010
A review by:	KwonVerge

01. Mother Grief
02. Ethics
03. John Wood
04. Passion
05. The Letter
06. Goliadkin

Ethereal Blue is a hellenic metal band named after On Thorns I Lay's same-titled song from Future Narcotic and the progress in their sound since 2005's Black Heart Process is more than obvious. The recent Essays In Rhyme On Passion & Ethics not only holds a poetic title, it manages to get the attention of the listener as well with a beautiful cover artwork drowning in shades of grey with the railway(?) piano in a barren landscape amidst falling partitures. Definitely a promising first impression, pleasing in the first place the eye of the listener.

One could say the band moves in atmospheric death metal soundscapes, yet still, what they present holds much more for the audience. A progressive vibe is omnipresent through the whole duration of the album. While cherishing Essays In Rhyme On Passion & Ethics you will notice a variety of vocal lines, ranging from melodic, clean ones and not only to death metal grunts and more black metal oriented shrieks, offering diversity in terms of expression. Also, the tempo doesn't remain stable, according to the structure of the composition and the emotions the band wants to present the listener is getting lost inside a maelstrom of fierce moments blending together with mid-to-low tempo, melodic passages and vice versa with the marriage of heaven and hell being quite successful dare I say. An Opeth-ian aura is vivid, not that much in terms of composing, mainly like a floating feeling every now and then.

Essays In Rhyme On Passion & Ethics is a grand step ahead for the band, all these years in waiting for the second full-length prove to have been 5 years of hard work, experimentation and maturity. Efthimis' progress in terms of expression is an apocalypse and the drumming is more elegant, supporting Etheral Blue in any tempo required, presenting also many interesting ideas here and there and blending well with the pulsating bass lines. The keyboards although in a lesser role this time, whenever they make their appearance they enrich the sound either on a gentle or escalating manner and the guitars offer a wide variety of riffs, chords and acoustic moments. As for highlights, I could pick up the ten-minute opuses that portrait the beginning and very end of the album, "Mother Grief" and "Goliadkin", the intense, deep and emotional "Ethics" and the boiling and finally exploding "The Letter". If the album didn't tell you that much in the first place, from the second whirl o' the disk things will be different.

Ethereal Blue's rebirth is only the beginning of what is yet to follow, inspiration is more than present and Essays In Rhyme On Passion & Ethics granted them a very big experience in terms of composing, all that remains is to master it and fly to open space, breaking all barriers.

"Starlit - ashes - are my road."