Even though it’s the onset of Spring that has helped me get out of the reviewing slump, it’s probably not very metal to talk about the green shoots of life conquering the darkness of winter. Take Ethereal Darkness. Would I be reviewing them if they growled about frolicking lambs and sunny days? No. I’m reviewing their sophomore effort, Echoes, because it’s about grief, loss, the quiet weight of being human, and all the things needed to make good metal.
It’s also one of the best albums of the year so far.
Ethereal Darkness are part of the wave of bands splitting the difference between melodeath and doom metal in long form compositions that inevitably draw Insomnium comparisons. However, while definitely part of the family, Ethereal Darkness offer a more ferocious, more diverse take on the idea on Echoes. Just listen to the furious black metal assault that launches a minute into album closer “Realization” and the shimmering post-black tones that attack dissolves into. They opt for a more somber palette too, closer to Be’lakor than Insomnium, that helps drive a heavy depth and texture of sound that gives Echoes the feeling of a doom album. Indeed, the best way to describe Echoes is black-tinged melodeath riffs used to create proggy, posty doom song structures.
That’s a great idea but turns out to be weakness as much as strength here, as over the course of a full hour. I regularly got the urge to pause Echoes at the 45 minute mark as the album became too much, too samey. If I did so and returned, I enjoyed the end, but that doesn’t change the fact that this sort of listener fatigue is a bad thing. While Ethereal Darkness‘ layered sound and lengthy compositions do set out to create that sense of crushing darkness and I am seeing a bug in a feature, more pronounced use of their quieter moments would create a shading that only increases the sense of darkness.
While this is a significant quibble to say the least, it didn’t stop me enjoying Echoes. It’s one of the best things to come out of the gloomy melodeath ranks in a long time, a ferocious assertation that the genre is about more than pretty metal riffs for sitting by the waters all forlorn and depressed. That’s why even while finding Echoes way too long, I still played it again and again. Sunny days are well and good, but music like Ethereal Darkness‘ can give you just as much of a shot in the arm.
