The Night Eternal is another new voice working within this field of traditional heavy metal. Hailing from northern Germany, this group is pretty clearly inspired by the aforementioned In Solitude and Mercyful Fate, but with enough of a distinct spin on the style without it feeling like a rehash of prior bands. They favor a somewhat more structurally off-beat approach – it’s very clearly an EP that’s driven first and foremost by the riffing more than anything else. And that the hazy, austere atmosphere emerges purely from the riffing and the somewhat odd manner in how the riffing emerges from each other than by production tricks or lifting goth rock hooks wholesale and crudely implementing them into metal songs.
Rather, a more patient listener tends to find that the riffing and the way it moves between each part is what dictates the course of the songs more than anything else, subtly shifting without being jarring or turning into bland, easy listening mush. It’s a structural/arrangement style that Mercyful Fate did better than almost anybody else in metal, and while I wouldn’t say these guys are on par with Fate – it is no insult, mind you; it’s just that about nobody really is – they do nonetheless write really organic songs in which the riffs are super memorable (and more melodically flexible than you’d expect), and everything just comes together very well. For a debut EP it’s rather confident stuff, and as a nice little capstone, they throw in a solid Judas Priest cover to round things out.
– Ridenintoglory.com
Released By:
Dying Victims Productions (Germany), 2019.
