In our ongoing investigation of deceptive and outright fraudulent extreme metal acts, we pull the rug under a handful of established outfits that don’t even seem to bother hiding that they are after your money first, artistic integrity a distant second - an audience satisfaction not even registering. The more we pull away the blinds the more obvious these practices become. Maybe your favorite band is in here, maybe your life-long inspiration only cares about the dollars/euros you’re giving him/her? Don’t be fooled, there are plenty of honest, hard-working metal bands everywhere in the scene. It’s just that these money-hungry, artistically vacuum units make it difficult for everybody involved. These bands stopped caring, they lost the passion and fire. In short: they Sold Their Souls...
I had some material done already before the demise of Lord Belial. Some of the material was actually intended for the next Lord Belial album, but since we disbanded I changed around all of the ideas into new songs.
I don’t really consider it that much superior. But we KEPT the quality from 1st to 4th album, and that is something that is not easy to do! And I think there will come a 5th album that will kick just as much ass.
Symfo black metal was perhaps one of the more promising subgenres to arise since the second wave of Scandinavian black metal in the mid ‘90s. Alas like any genre reaching a certain amount of popularity it seemed for every genuinely interesting genre act at least a dozen or more bland copycats sprung up taking away any legitimacy the genre might have gained thanks to its original purveyors. It seems that for every Bal-Sagoth, Christ Agony, Emperor, Nokturnal Mortum or Rotting Christ there were absolutely awful acts such as Ancient, Finnugor, Mystic Circle, Nefertum or Siebenbürgen to descend the subgenre into parody and travesty. The Canadian Eclipse Eternal was one of the better acts in the genre, but not yet exceedingly so. The preceding album "Übermensch: Evolution Beyond the Species" was a mildly entertaining affair that, despite its formulaic nature and clearly identifiable inspirations, combined death metal thickness with symphonic black metal malevolence. On this record everything you’d associate with the genre is accounted for: grand sweeping arrangements, sparse acoustics, well above average technical bits, ambitious but unobtrusive orchestrations and morose but hateful riffing with melancholic melodies along a plethora of vocal styles (rasps, choirs, heroic spoken word, etc). There isn’t a whole lot wrong with "The Essence Of Hopelessness" – but it is too moderate an affair to really recommend, either positively or negatively. One could argue that this is similar to fellow Canadians Artep, but more musically and conceptually accomplished. The artwork is a disappointment (a picture of the band on a forested mountainpeak, really?). Artwork by Graal (Infinited Hate, Vital Remains), Bogdan Amidzic (A Hill to Die Upon), Péter Sallai (Bornholm), Phil Fensterer (Abysmal Torment, Cryogen) or Niklas Sundin (Darkrise, Golem, Detonation) could have made this look so much more ambitious and professional than it currently is. For all intents and purposes, Eclipse Eternal is a worthy band of the genre, but hardly one that is going to eclipse any of the established leaders or its classic practitioners. Nevertheless, this might be of interest to die-hards fans of the subgenre.http://www.archaicnorth.comcomment itWouter 6
