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01. Ruins |
Verdict: 7
Artist: Eternal of Sweden
Album: Heaven's Gate
Release date: 29 January 2016
Label: Black Lodge
"Eternal of Sweden" is Melodic Metal when it is really solid, bombastic arrangements and straight forward tunes. You don't have to be a professor or a brain surgeon to understand the lyrics either which is great. "Heaven's Gate" is the second full length album by this Swedish melodic metal act from Dalarna, Sweden (if you didn't get that from the name of the band). The promo material presents the band as somewhat progressive but I don't know about that, "Eternal of Sweden" manufacture Metal that cater to the wide masses without being all that overly complex in the rhythmic and melodic patterns. This sound more like "Europe" and "Hammerfall" than "Dream Theater" or "Rush" if you know what I mean.
The overall sound and some melodic elements of the opening song "Ruins" resembles another Swedish metal act, "Nocturnal Rites" ("End of Our Rope" from the album "Grand Illusion" 2005) quite a bit. Christer Gärds and Jonny Lindkvist could easily switch places without anyone recognising it on top of that. I actually consulted the inlay of "Grand Illusions " to check if any of the members happened to be the same. I don't know if the resemblance is all that bad though, this since "Nocturnal Rites" latest (last) album was released back in 2008 and they produced a number of stellar albums showing off their awesome greatness.
The album has been recorded by one of the most interesting producers in Sweden these days. Peter Tägtgren ("Pain") has recorded the album at his quite famous Abyss studio and the album has been mastered by his neighbour Jonas Kjellgren ("Scar Symmetry", "Raubtier", "Sonic Syndicate"), Sure enough the production sounds great in every aspect! It is loud and ambient at the same time and these days when most productions get the shit compressed out of them this is nice indeed.
I like this album and chances are that I listen to it quite a few times in the future. I will probably pick this album over the new "Avantasia" album when it comes to slapping a random album into my CD-player in my car. I hope that some of the more obvious generic elements on this album will mature into pure greatness on the future albums of "Eternal of Sweden".