Still Dreaming

When Black Sabbath proudly created the doomiest of all metal styles they never thought, not even for a split second, that their British disciples would surrender the championship in this field to Swedes, American, and even Germans if you like. It wasn’t enough that football was taken away from The Isles, but now their favourite doom metal was abducted by allies… sorry, alien forces. The situation pissed Napalm Death’s Lee Dorian to the extent that he decided to leave the noisemongers and to embark on a journey to conquer the other extreme; in other words, the man was determined to bring doom metal back to its homeland.

One has to give it to Dorian since with the help of his main band and the label he founded (Rise above Records) doom metal started feeling much more at home in England in the early/mid-90’s. Naturally, it was Cathedral that led the movement which was subsequently joined by Acrimony, Solstice, Pagan Altar, Spiritual Beggars, Electric Wizard, Serenity, the one-album-wonders Estranged and Mourn, etc. Eterne are often forgotten when talking about those times since their palette was a bit more diverse than the one of the aforementioned practitioners; in a way similar to another great forgotten UK outfit, The Whores of Babylon, they incorporated a more atmospheric gothic flair with touches of dark ambient the final result a thoroughly captivating opera of moods and emotions.

The two guys (there were only two musicians involved here) started as Eldritch, but under that moniker they only managed one demo (“Quietus Eterne”) in 1992 which, if for nothing else, gave them the next band name. A demo and an EP followed in quick succession before the album reviewed here became a fact. The lush keyboards at the beginning of the opening “Flesh Made Word” wrap the listener in loads of atmospherics which only get aggravated by the jarring rhythmic-section and the excellent soulful deep clean vocals. A really nice introduction to the band’s style which gets an even more alluring colouring thanks to the brilliant elegiac doomster “Divine”, 8-min of sorrow, breath-taking leads and gorgeous Oriental tunes; doom metal at its most shining best. “The Crawling Chaos” is a bit edgier, but the superb keyboards steal the show completely; these melodies will haunt you, I promise. “Scarlet Field” is a high-octane funeral piece ala early Cathedral whose gloom is dissipated by the more optimistic “Marionette”, a less riff-driven dark wave hymn along the lines of Sisters of Mercy.

“The Endless” is an endless array of sad pessimistic landscapes the keyboards accentuating the gloom which is carved by heavy dramatic riffs. “Forever” is 2-min of gorgeous keyboard melodies, and “A Certain Kind of Bitterness” is the definitive fusion of gothic and doom, a masterpiece of dramatic build-ups where the vocals are helped by infernal cries and screams; a compelling hellish picture for sure built on constantly jumpy rhythms. “Epilogue” arrives a bit early being a great heavy ballad with standout emotional vocal performance. “Thanatos” is a gothic melodrama achieving a seamless duel between the keyboards and the riffs the former leading the show with addictive hooks provided abundantly. The title-track is a dark macabre song deepening the depressing clouds above this recording the latter partly dissipated by the brilliant ambient closer “In Retrospect”.

This is a full-blown symphony of darkness and sorrow, a fascinating listen which may not be a sure pick for the more cheerful part of the fanbase as they may become saddened in no time with possible tendencies developed towards suicide… kidding here, of course; but one would really have a hard time coming up with a better example of elegiac musical melancholia. The combination of the guitars, the keyboards and the vocals is pretty much one of a kind and the only other act, apart from the already mentioned The Whores of Babylon, capable of creating such a unique depressing yet compelling symbiosis that comes to mind is another formation from The Isles, London After Midnight. This duo managed to carve their own path in the annals of British doom metal, serving the more melodic and arguably more accessible analogue to the much more celebrated triumvirate, the one of Paradise Lost, Anathema, and My Dying Bride. Some may trace the roots of this kind of music down to the first gothic outfits like Bauhaus, Joy Division and mid-period Killing Joke, but who hasn’t been influenced by these ground-breaking teams? And these keyboards… the symphonic metal formations will be eating their hearts out for not being able to produce tunes of such atmospheric magnanimity.

“Deadauthor” was an immediate follow-up released a few months later, and not surprisingly it featured a fairly similar approach with a bigger emphasis on the doom metal side. It was another strong showing, establishing the band as a potent force on the doom/gothic metal field. With gothic metal only going stronger in the 90’s, it’s a mystery why they never carried on provided that musical differences had hardly been the bone of contention with just two people behind these musical exploits. Still, with two outstanding works left behind them, the guys can rest assured that their name will remain eternally in the annals of doom metal history as one of the fractions who did fight to the last for bringing doom metal back on English soil.