Band:	Ethernal
Album:	Grim Ethernity
Style:	Progressive black metal
Release date:	2004

01. Grim Ethernity
02. Blood, Chains And Misery
03. Colossus
04. All Hail Fire
05. Echoes In Eternity
06. Haggard
07. Black Procession/ Procession

Ethernal is a young band from the UK that plays something strange: a blend of raw black metal with thrash and progressive parts. It's really uncommon, and extremely enjoyable. The only problem comes from the production, which is quite good for an autoproduced demo as far as the instruments are concerned, but to say things plainly, the vocals are inaudible and sound more like an interference in the background than like black metal screams. The mystery now being: to what extent is this raw production a result of the band's conscious will? And to what extent is that a result of a lack of recording material?

Anyway, to sum up the music, I can say Ethernal play an interesting progressive black metal, a bit messy at times, with a lot of riff and rhythm changes, lots of breaks, lots of everything that makes me think they should gain more focus... But some of their ideas are excellent, like the whole epic 'Blood, Chains And Misery', or the heavy metal-like riffing at the end of 'Echoes In Eternity'. I think their main quality is the fact that they are able to put at least one original idea in each of their songs, so every track actually is interesting.

They also have some almost thrashy tunes like the end of 'All Hail Fire', maybe the best song here. There are the last three minutes of 'Colossus', with atmospheric noises and a weird, almost industrial riff. 'Grim Ethernity' has this repeating drums loop over a quite classical raw black metal song. 'Haggard' is almost an instrumental track that doesn't sound black metal at all: it is actually a thrash song with a bunch of cool riffs.

So you see, this band has several qualitites that need to be worked on. I bet that with some more focus on the songwriting, and good recording conditions, they would grab the attention of a lot of black metal fans searching for something original. I'm waiting forward to their next recording.

Highlights: Blood, Chains And Misery, All Hail Fire, Echoes In Eternity

Contact: ethernalforest@aol.com