"Transcending The Mundane" (USA) Review:
ETERNAL SILENCE
"The Dawning Of Chaos"
Eternal Silence formed in late 1996 with the intent of writing straight-forward, brutal death metal. The band managed to record a full-length demo, Before My Eyes, in 1998. The band suffered their first significant blow in late 1999 with the loss of bassist John Hill due to personal reasons. He was replaced by Sandi Plaza in late 2000. The band's second blow would come with Sandi’s departure in early 2003. She was soon replaced by Joe Klotz. This latest demo, The Dawning of Chaos, is a four song feast of pure, old-school death metal.
The guitar/vocal duo of Jim Flynn and Keith Dorn are impressive both in their riff writing and in their sense of melody and harmony. There is no doubt that this is brutal music, but Flynn and Dorn manage to inject their songs with plenty of variety to keep your attention. The production sounds unbelievable for a demo. Full, clear and solid. There are some mixing issues that could be improved upon, mainly the very loud bass drum, but other than that this demo sounds fantastic. Its funny because I have probably 50 full length albums with worse production than this demo, so Eternal Silence is definitely doing something right. I never do this, but since this demo is only four songs, I will comment on each song individually.
“Global Castration”- After a rather laughable one line attempt at an "evil" vocal intro, a fairly technical thrashy guitar riff starts things off right. This is a great song not only because of the cool riffs, but because Eternal Silence has actually managed to write a catchy death metal song without losing any of its punch. Near the end the song fades into a really cool atmospheric bit with clean guitars picking a chord progression. This part also has a very cool, although short, melody line over the atmospheric guitars.
“Left to Die”- This song starts with a drum intro which is ok, but drummer Wade Prelesnik almost sounds confused during it. The guitars enter and that drum pattern continues, this time adding a rather unnecessary echo effect to the drums. Luckily this only lasts for approximately 40 seconds before the song really kicks in with a cool speed picking melody line. Once again the band enters with a cool verse riff that is fairly memorable. The chorus has a killer riff with some harmonic squealing that’s straight out of Morbid Angel’s bag of tricks. The repetition of these riffs throughout the song makes for another enjoyable listen.
“Fading Inside”- A very memorable intro unfolds into some great verse riffing and some killer vocals. Not much more to say about this.
“Consumed by Darkness”- Probably the heaviest song on the album and my personal favorite as well. The vocals phrasing makes this song very memorable and will have you wanting to growl along in no time. A great end to the demo.
Overall, I’d have to say that this is one of the most promising demos I’ve ever heard. As long as Eternal Silence can stay hungry, they should be able to score some kind of record deal soon. I think it would be in the band's best interest to leave behind some of those death metal cliches that they are clinging to, particularly on their website--the goat head logos and the quotes like “retaliation awaits…and the endless suffering shall commence” come off as childish and rather stupid. However, the band is on the right path musically, and I’m looking forward to hearing these songs on a full-length album soon.
Reviewed in 2003 by: Craig McCullough
Transcending The Mundane - http://basementbar.com/DefaultN1.asp