Band:	Hate
Album:	Erebos
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	November 15, 2010
A review by:	jupitreas

01. Genesis
02. Lux Aeterna
03. Erebos
04. Quintessence Of Higher Suffering
05. Trinity Moons
06. Hero Cults
07. Transsubstance
08. Hexagony
09. Wrists
10. Luminous Horizon

Oh, Hate, why oh why are you so boring?

Compared to their previous Listenable offering, Morphosis, Hate have largely dropped the Zyklon/Behemoth cold black metal elements in favor of a more generic death metal sound. Erebos is also a significantly slower album than Morphosis, with the band sometimes exploring unusual riffs ("Quintessence Of Higher Suffering"), breakdowns and some odd time-signatures, as well as Bolt Thrower-esque buildups in songs such as "Erebos". Unfortunately, these examples of a slightly more left-field approach to death metal are probably the sole interesting thing about this album. Hate is more than happy playing completely generically ("Hero Cults", "Hexagony" etc.) for the rest of the duration of this record and this is obviously one of the reasons why Erebos is such a boring album. With this said, it is definitely not the biggest reason.

Hate's real problem is actually the complete lack of unique hooks in their music. It should be noted that this has been a problem for them since the beginning of this band's career and it just keeps on lingering now, making Erebos really kinda annoying to listen to due to how staunchly Adam The First Sinner and co. refuse to get down to it and completely rethink their approach. Yes, the unforgiving cold black metal atmosphere sure did help Behemoth rise to glory and stop-go riffs and odd time signatures are similarly in very high demand nowadays due to how well Gojira is doing. These are great hooks; however, they are not Hate's hooks and the fact that the band attempts to claim them as their own frankly stinks a little of being too carefully designed for maximum appeal.

Thus, Hate's music is simply too diluted and lacks a well defined, recognizable sound signature. Due to this, in spite of the obvious high musical competence of all the musicians involved, Erebos fails to impress and lacks soul. I'm not going to listen to this album again.