...and So the Night Became

There are moments in my life where I go totally ballistic over black metal bands, and have the urge to purchase their entire discography in one online sitting. Then, there are times where I just want to steal their stupid clown paint and build churches near their homes. As you can probably tell, when it comes to black metal, I’m extremely interchangeable. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell a masterpiece from Death Cult Armageddon when I hear one. Aeternus is, amazingly enough, a mere 3-piece side project of Obtained Enslavement and Gorgoroth. How can a side project be so much better than either of the bands it spawned from? This band will show you. Songs range from 6-11 minutes and stretch over 70 minutes, and amazingly, never get boring. The band has a feel unlike any other band. Never have I heard such strong blackened growls, militaristic (and amazingly well played) drum patterns, and such an incredible fusion between smooth, rich, beauty, and thick, distorting evil. Clean vocals even shine through on one of the later tracks, and in a way so strong, you’ll have multiple seizures. Everything starts out slow with gloomy keyboards, picks up speed, then flows into beauty, speeds up or slows down, and ends peacefully and calmly. I can honestly say, from my very first listen’s completion, I realized that this would become one of my favorite albums of all time. To sum it up, ...And So The Night Became is over an hour of thick, war-filled atmosphere, blackened and melodic death metal, and some of the most incredible musical talent I’ve ever heard. You haven’t truly worshiped dark death/black metal til you’ve heard this album. Unfortunately, these guys became more death metal (Behemoth-esque) in their more recent releases, and can’t come anywhere near the beauty and power of this album. There’s no excuse not to own this.