If you’re in need of a giggle, head on over to the Eternal Decay MySpace page – where you will find a most amusing Immortal-esque photograph of these three corpsepainted Israelis trying to look menacing. One is armed with a keytar and another thinks his drumsticks are a crossbow. I don’t know. I mean, it’s not that I’m anti-corpsepaint, but some bands just go so overboard with the image you get the impression it’s all style and little substance, and I can see a certain type of black metal elitist will be screaming “Un-tr00” at their oreo-cookie fashioned faces. That’s not to say this is a bad effort - in fact, the usual rule is the more shitty the production and the more generic the sound the more this certain type of fan with lavish a record with praise.
‘Beyond The Illusion Gate’ brings things in with a dark, atmospheric opening passage, before the drumming picks up a solid, mid-paced rhythm and eventually leads us to a fast and destructive sounding verse. Keyboards play a heavy role on this album, and in places they do add a certain Dimmu-pomp to the sound while at other times they come across rather cheesy. ‘Warlords Of The Fall’ is one example, with drums marching fearlessly into battle as the keyboards add a really dramatic sense of pomp to the chorus – the delivery reminds me quite a bit of Children Of Bodom, in that while vocally this is extreme and there is a blackened edge to the music there is also a kind of driving power metal force to the keyboards while the guitars at times veer into neo-classical territory. ‘Attached To Yelp Of God’ utilises some classic guitar soloing and Monarch Erhelbeta is certainly a skilled player.
‘The Rise’ pulls apart the gates of hell and lets out agonising cries and moans as a spoken bellow leads into the next track proper. They do make good use of samples here and at the end of ‘Darkness And Its Faithful Servants’ which rings out with church bells and what sounds like backwards masking lending quite a dark and sinister vibe to the track. I detect a battle-theme in the music; ‘Barricades…’ marches in with force and the militaristic grunts have me thinking of a Middle Earthian army of Uruk-Hai, while ‘Eulogise The Silent Funeral’ has a medieval jauntiness which winds down gently towards the end.
There is certainly potential for this band; their mix of power and black metal styles could make them a hit with fans of Children Of Bodom, Turisas and latter day Dimmu Borgir, although they need to really develop their songwriting skills if they are to really reach their potential. Symphonic metal is great when it’s done well, and pretty dull when it isn’t – there are no in-betweens because it is very much about creating atmosphere and if that isn’t there it just doesn’t work. At the moment I just find Eternal Decay are lacking that extra bit of oomph to make this work. A promising debut, nonetheless.
http://www.myspace.com/eternaldecayisrael
