Hell Eternal

"I lift the blood-filled chalice towards the sky, and drink in the honour of my master of the deep. I kneel before the black altar of Satan and the sign of the Baphomet. And command the dark forces to come forth..."

Sounds stupid? Maybe it does. And if I told you that there's more of it, seven full songs of endless Satanic nonsense in every possible and impossible verbal combination, you would probably look elsewhere for good music.

But, just as Setherial were capable of writing approximately 1,000 lines similar to "The rise of the ancient dragon, from the darkened depths. The seventh gate is open and Satan rules the world..." without repeating the same nonsense, they were, at least on Hell Eternal, also capable of making 1,000 insane riffs. Without repeating the same song. Hell Eternal, for me, is the best and most brutal that Swedish black metal has ever offered.

Okay, obvious comparisons to Marduk or Dark Funeral will pop up. Screw that. In the same year, Marduk released Panzer Division Marduk, and I went to see them live. While buying the ticket, I also noticed the Hell Eternal digipak and bought it as well. Marduk were... okay. Boring. Nothing special, after 15 minutes just the same-old, even though I was in the first row. They didn't even play the good tracks from the two excellent albums they had. And when I came home, early morning, ears buzzing, legs and neck aching, I just tried Hell Eternal, at low volume. WHAM! Blown away. It was marvelous, and still is.

Concerning Dark Funeral... Nothing they have ever done belongs in the same sentence as Hell Eternal. Pretty much the same as anything Setherial themselves did after this.

The digipak in question looks what every self-respecting black metal digipak should look like: black. On the front: the logo, a shield, the title and two figures looming from the darkness. One holding a spiked club, the other an axe. And the one with the spiked club had the weirdest corpse paint: splitting his forehead in half. Open it, and you're threatened by more of them, almost as if they are displayed on a fantasy war figures exhibition.

Open it some more, and on one side there are some credits and hails. On the other side, someone, in their infinite black metal wisdom, confused the left and the right side of what was to be folded downwards, so you have to read the right page first, and THEN the left page - if you want to follow the lyrics. Kvlt.

And, yeah, there's the music too. Seven songs, forty minutes and forty seconds. The production, done by Tommy Tagtgren at the Abyss studio, was impeccable. Play it low, it's thundering. Play it loud, it's bloody scorching. The drums have the best sound this side of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. The guitars are fairly clean, but the clarity is of little help when you take into account what they are doing. Almost always there's the classic deviant black metal rhythm guitar, blazing as if there's no time for small talk. If it wasn't grandiose, it didn't end up here. Obviously, if we're talking Armageddon, there's no point in using small words.

And the lead guitar adds three or four other dimensions. When you are able to notice what it is doing, that is. But if you do, you'll be rewarded.

Armageddon... that's the word. No intro, just instant blasting, a ferocious scream, and we're in. No mercy. Except for the subliminal ride cymbal going at half the tempo of the snare drum, the rest are ubiquitous blastbeats of the most merciless kind, and the regular eight beats per second seem to be able to go on forever. The riffs are ascending and descending from everywhere, Wrath's vocals are magnificent and quite understandable, and the music is just beyond comparison. The levels of brutality are so high, yet so gloriously outrageous, that, once you get used to Hell Eternal, you will actually consider the songs NOT starting with a scream "weaker tracks." And even though one, title, track, does indeed have an intro... when Setherial kick in, the snare drum blasting is so loud that it deafens everything else.

Hell Eternal is not an album for the weak. Most people would complain about the lack of variation, but those who know will "get" it. To this day, I haven't heard anything like this: fast all the way, brutal all the time, endlessly insane and with no indecisive moments. And catchy as the aforementioned hell. Listen closely and stop complaining about how it hurts, and you'll realize just how many sweet and outstanding moments this all-out noisefest has, and you'll keep returning to it for years to come. I do.

Want an example? "Towards Thy Realm" has a moment when the singer growls, and not screams, "Satan." And yes, that's a great moment, just as is the closing moment when the song slows down a bit and the vocals threateningly command "Creation: Reverse." But you have to hear it to witness it.

"Shadows of the Throne" screams "best song ever" at least while I'm listening to it — just the beginning holds an explosion and a moment where everything stops, slams down with full force three times, and continues at full speed. Then, what else... ah, it has the best riff ever, then another best riff ever, then another... and then a double-bass drum part where it feels like you're ascending into the freezing night sky, and if there ever was one moment in music history saying "THIS is black metal," listen to it between 4:21 and 4:35 and this would be the one. Did I forget to say that I've never heard tom rolls and cymbal crashes being used like this?

The title track manages to sound even MORE brutal, and the way the guitar follows the scream through the "flame, my dark delight" part of the lyrics damn right feels like some flames are being thrown at me. And listen closely, you'll notice one of the noblest melodies ever written passing you by as if it's nothing special. Somewhere around 3:30, Alastor Mysteriis also goes for the "fastest kick drum ever" and it sounds as if he's resting on that part. Actually, the drums are, as a whole, played with so much careless speed, precision and variation that... Never mind. I'm out of superlatives.

"The Aeschma Deava," besides having the best riff... damn. Yes, another best riff, just like almost any other riff on this album. I'm already regretting having started to write. If this was a regular review I'd just write 10/10 and instead of reviewing give you the links to every CD shop in the world where you can buy Hell Eternal. If you can't get the digipak, there is good news: Napalm Records has re-released it in 2008, as a double CD, so in the same case you can get Hell Eternal and Nord. If you can still find that one in 2020, or whenever you're reading this.

And yes, "The Aeschma Deava" actually slows down. Then the drumming gradually speeds up to one and the same riff (yep, best ever) and you're exposed only to total blackness and an annoying cymbal playing with your nerves until everything explodes back into blasting. Then Setherial go progressive, and I promise to let you know what "The Sign of Wrath Awaked" is about as soon as I figure it out. 20 years after buying the album, I'm still not sure. It sounds like it was played backwards, but it isn't. No idea how they came up with that, and learned that thrashing interlude either. It doesn't make sense. Except that it's brutal.

What does make sense is the more straightforward follow-up track, "The Nightwinds," and by that time, even though it's easier on the nerves, all you'll be able to remember is "Satan... in hell awaits..."

Finally, "Guardians of the Gates of Flame" ends as abruptly as Hell Eternal started, and this one is so twisted that I can only tell you that the chorus consists of "Rahhhh!!! Rahhhh!!!" and it repeats twice. The parts in-between sound like Emperor are having a knife fight with Dark Funeral. Incredibly messy, but in a glorious way, as if Setherial had a million more things to say but instead decided to shove them all into one final song. And the poor listener, by then, gets so exhausted that it's all the same. Just mental pain.

Twenty years later, Hell Eternal is still the best fun you can have without actually watching the Armageddon with a cold beer in your hand. Since that fairytale event isn't very likely going to happen, and "Satan" is a pre-Christian word meaning basically "the one we don't like" and not a personal name of some imaginary bad guy, you're left with this. To my knowledge, no one has ever tried to do anything like what Setherial did here, or if they did, it was nothing memorable and fell apart after a few minutes. This one is a documented moment in history when someone decided to do the maximum in glorious, Satanic violence, and had the means to do it. No mercy, no romance, and if you're looking for mood, the mood is the Armageddon itself. As if it wasn't enough to throw in more riffs, fills, melodies and breakneck direction changes than other bands do in their whole careers, Setherial hammered the point home by using the word "Satan" about 33 times. I counted. And trust me, not for a second, never, does it sound like they were joking.

"Hell Eternal" was released in 1999 and it seems as if Setherial wanted to end the 20th century with an appropriate apocalypse. The Great War is over? World War II ditto? That's not okay, the century needs an ending in fire. The aptly titled album shows that Sweden, currently the European country with the longest period of peace, has still a lot of martial energy under its surface.

Okay, the sheer vehemence of the material does not only blow the audience away, it is also at the expense of a differentiated production. A wall of sound forces the listeners back into their seats. On the one hand, I enjoy the uncompromising mentality and the pure blackness. On the other hand, the album lacks dynamic, because the noise level remains unchanged during the entire album, if I ignore a short section of the fourth thunderstorm.

The constantly raging Scandinavians did not forget to intersperse a minimum of melodies, but I am sure that I would not be able to distinguish the single songs on a concert. "Hell Eternal" does not suffer from monotony, because it never gets boring. Its brutality has a fascinating component. Nevertheless, this work offers more or less uniform compositions. It challenges albums such as "Vobiscum Satanas" and, no doubt, it has more muscles. But I am sorry, this does not mean that "Hell Eternal" wins the comparison. Sometimes less is more and Setherial have to face the fact that their tracks are less catchy and less variable. Indeed, this record hails from the most gruesome corner of hell, but it does not allow a brief look at any other location.

Be that as it may, there can be no doubt that Setherial have drunken from the blood-filled chalice of black metal. Tracks like "The Nightrealm" destroy everything that tries to resist. Extremely fast rhythms torture soul, mind and body and a greater distance to mainstream music is simply not imaginable. The sinister horde does not prefer conventional song structures and the dudes also spit on progressive patterns. They switch from hyperfast to ultra-hyperfast and back, that's it, but the compositions do also not lack substance. The fervent hatred of the musicians is mirrored by the seven spawns of evil in a very impressive way. Should I criticize that they just use the typical means, for example the throaty voice of the lead singer? I don't think so. Every sub genre needs an identity which is based on some core elements and therefore I have absolutely no problem with the general approach of Setherial.

It remains a mystery why bands like Dark Funeral or Marduk stand in the first and formations like Setherial or Thy Primordial wait in the second row. A better promotion, a better distribution, a better image, all these things can be the crucial factor. But in terms of music, I see no big difference. Honest, untameable and violent: this is "Hell Eternal". And I must add that it houses high quality black metal without exception. I can hardly wait to experience how the band will finish the 21st century, but I am sure that all will end in fire.

Setherial are one of the "second tier" black metal bands from Sweden, being not nearly as well known as their fellow countrymen Marduk, Dark Funeral, and Dissection, but aggressive and vicious all the same. Their early works are an excercise in haunting melody, evolving into the grand snowy soundscape that was Nord. Unfortunately, like a lot of bands, a time comes when they lose the very inspiration that often separated them from the hordes and give in to stylistic memes.

Musically this is barely differentiable from Dark Funeral's output since Vobiscum Sathanas. Obviously Kraath and co. liked Vobiscum Sathanas, because there is little here that doesn't amount to VS fellatio. The direction they were going in with Lords of the Nightrealm was obvious and the seeds of cliche' had germinated and were festering under that grimy mix full of blastbeats and satanic hate. All the subtlety of past releases is gone here, replaced by a rather cartoonish satanism that is only intimidating if you have peanut butter for brains. As a fellow musician, I must relate that the insistence of the band on doing only minor chords is grating after even only one song. It's a wafer-thin approach and filling an album with nothing but minor chords over blastbeats is hardly any better an approach than the fetid minimalist punk approach of only having 3 chords in a song.

With the ouster of Otto "Moloch" Wiklund on drums, Mysteriis replaces him, and Kraath replaces Mysteriis on guitar. Right there, I must say nobody is playing the right instrument. Kraath needs to get back behind the microphone where he belongs, and Mysteriis needs to return back to the guitars because his single-note lines were one of Setherial's defining traits, and, as well, his drumming is pretty one-dimensional blasturbation. Choronzon is an ok guitarist, but for some reason, be it the washed out Abyss production or the general oversimplification of everything, the guitar duo here has lost the spark and most chords/riffs get buried under the artificially high-end production. As well, the drums are buried deep under the mix. If you're not careful, the sound will soar right over your head. I don't know why Kraath gave up the microphone, as his replacement, Wrath, is one of the most generic Legion/Nocturno Culto clones I've ever heard. His voice simply lacks the piercing power that Kraath's had. Oh well.

Still though, once you get past the obnoxious production and obvious Dark Funeral worship, this is a pretty good album to headbang to. However, if you're a metalhead worth your salt, you already have quite a few albums chock-full of hyperspeed norsecore black metal that is most likely better produced and more inspired than this. I listen to it, yes, because it isn't offensive to my ears, but that's hardly a claim to fame. In a musical paradigm that is getting more and more saturated each day with characterless norsecore, it makes little sense to jump on the bandwagon and start shouting "SATAN!!!" as much as you can over wall of sound guitars and endless blasturbation. It just doesn't make any sense, and if anything, if I were Setherial, I'd move AWAY from that sound, not TOWARDS it. If you're new to Setherial, get everything up to and including Lords of the Nightrealm. This (Hell Eternal) is where Setherial gave up their identity as a band and became yet another cliche' black metal band from Sweden and will provide you with no context about the band and no clue to their musical personality.