AETERNAM

With musical and lyrical themes taken from Egyptian culture, it's surprising to see that Aeternam are from Quebec. Even more amusing is the use of the fictional city of Hamunaptra's name as a song title (the city, taken from the film ‘The Mummy’ is, in fact, an Indian city). Anyway, this isn't a geo-political essay, so to the music we go. At first, it's easy to write Aeternam off as pretenders to the Melechesh throne - Nile are a bit too heavy for comparison - at least musically. The same use of traditional instruments is used to good effect (most obviously on 'Iteru'), heavy use of eastern scales (correct me if I'm wrong - music theory is not my strong point), and some rather fine soaring clean vocals. All very similar. Yet, it's still a fairly unique take on extreme music; it's not saturated and directionless like modern Black Metal is, nor quite so jaded as Death Metal. So, for that alone, we should be able to pay a bit of attention to this. And so you should, because Aeternam are incredibly skilled at creating songs that riff like fuckers when they need to, and evoke images of 1920's archaeology digs at others. The formula threatens to outstay its welcome towards the end of these ten songs, but things are over before the thought of pressing stop really ever reaches your fingertips. For a debut, this is rather fine; the production is very crisp and avoids almost every single modern touch that would otherwise ruin this; the cymbals especially are beautifully captured. So, buy it and love it.

LABEL:

FORMAT:

Metal Blade Records

Album

DISCIPLES OF THE UNSEEN

Review by Steve Cowan

RUNNING TIME:

44:05

RELEASE DATE:

15th Feb 2010

TRACK LISTING

1) Ars Almadel
2) Angel Horned
3) Esoteric Formulae
4) The Coronation of Seth
5) Hamunaptra
6) Iteru
7) Goddess of Masr
8) Ouroboros
9) Circle In Flames
10) Through the Eyes of Ea

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Canada

"...a fairly unique take on extreme music; it's not saturated and directionless like modern Black Metal is, nor quite so jaded as Death Metal."