Ethereal Darkness’ new song ‘The Cycle‘ is, quite frankly, an assault on the sense that grabs you by the throat, shakes the ever loving shit out of you, spends a few moments stroking your hair and making you feel that everything is alright again and that you are safe, before turning around and kicking you square in the nuts and stamping on your face as you lay blubbing on the floor, and I fucking love it for that. I’m also wondering why I have only just discovered Ethereal Darkness as their style of progressive, melodic death/black metal – is that a thing? I think that should be a thing – is so far up my alley I can taste it on my tonsils.
Right from the get go, ‘The Cycle’ lulls you into a false sense of security with a an intro so haunting that it sends shivers down your spin – and one that could probably use an exorcism or two as well – but as soon as the song kicks in it doesn’t let up for the next nine minutes. It is harder than stone, heavier than metal, and so unbelievably melodic that you find yourself overwhelmed by a tsunami of sound so perfect that it crashes through your ears and into your soul. The work on offer here from the guitars and the bass is so perfectly structured and layered that ‘The Cycle’ doesn’t feel like a nine minute song. It never drags, it never stumble, it never falls, and it flies by in such a blissfully violent wall of noise that before you know it, ‘The Cycle’ is over and you’re hitting the play button again.
The blurb on their Bandcamp page states;
Ethereal Darkness is an atmospheric Melodic Death Metal band with Black and Doom Metal influences. The music focuses on the dark side of life and the eternal relationship between life and death, loss and love.”
And while the guitar work lays this out in a beautiful tapestry, the vocals reflect the emotion hurricane that the human being goes through when faced with loss. Look, without wanting to sound like someone with a grade school psychology degree, they roar and scream in all the right places and they aren’t afraid to, y’know, actually sing when it’s needed. This just leaves the drum work which is thunderous and serves as a driving force throughout the song, pushing the energy forward in an almost hypnotic way. I’m a sucker for good drumming and this drumming is great.
As I said earlier, until I heard ‘The Cycle’ I had never heard of Ethereal Darkness before, but fuck me gently with a chainsaw if this wasn’t the perfect introduction to the band. I fucking love it and you should to.
Head on over to their Bandcamp page and pick up ‘The Cycle’ for less than a bag of fucking crisps. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.
