2006-02-13
Eternal Oath is a Swedish Death Metal band that plays a variety of musical styles, and it has been around for fifteen years now.
On "Wither" the band shows how versatile it can get when it combines clean vocals, Gothic Metal-like music playing that interchanges with heavy riffs or quiet, almost instrumental, parts and heavy growls.
The opening song, "Behind Tomorrow", is a very energetic song with some impressive growls and heavy riffs that all of a sudden stop and make way to some quiet tunes.
The following song, "Death's Call", starts off with a Deathie voice and some heavy riffs, and then some clean vocals are introduced, making us forget about the Deathie sounds of before, but a few moments later they return to show us they're still here.
On the third song, "In Despair My For Sins", we see how aggressive the band can get with their heavy guitar tunes, explosive drums and vicious growls.
The next song, "Godsend" (no relation to the band with the same name), has an opening riff that is reminiscent of Evanescence with a heavy touch. Heavy? A lot more heavy, and as if to prove Eternal Oath is superior to Amy Lee's band they introduce some heavy growls; this song also features a lovely guitar solo supplied by Peter Nagy.
The next song, "Second Life", has a mixture of vocals with the clean and almost whispering voice being backed up by growls; It also has some music that inspires a Gothic atmosphere, and it appears as though without Joni Maensivu's growls it could have been a great ballad, although the song in its current form is a ballad of sorts as well, I suppose.
The sixth song, "Within My World", opens with a drumming segment and a riff that suits Power Metal with a heavy touch- Here we see again the clean vocals interchange with heavy growls, with the clean vocals in charge of the verses and the growls in charge of the chorus. This song also features a lovely solo, but the guitar is not the only one who supplies the goods here, all of the musical instruments on show here supply the goods, especially the drums.
"Act Of Fate" opens with a neatly played quiet passage, and then the voice of the vocalist joins in, and until the chorus it's a Gothic Metal song, only in the chorus do we hear some growls, but the clean vocals are still in control- Too bad the song ends so abruptly and so fast (the shortest song on the album, just over three minutes).
After "On Bitter Wings", another song with some impressive growls and fine music, comes "Fallen Virtue", which displays an addition to the former song.
The addition is Stefan Norgren's keyboards that receive the central stage.
The mixture of growls and tunes similar of Gothic Metal continue in "At Your Hands" that also features some nice musical passages by the guitars, the keyboards and the drums.
The next one, "A Face In The Crowd", shows a mixture of singing styles: at first we hear clean vocals, then we hear some whispers with a Death Metal inclination, a bit later the heavy Death voice takes over and after a musical passage we hear a first on the album, a female voice that could very well fit into Lacuna Coil songs or a few Tristania songs- All of those singing styles get a strong backup from the beautiful melody in the background, and that's something that can be said throughout the album.
The last song is the theme song, and it starts off with some quiet and calm tunes, a few seconds later the vocalist enters the fray with his doom-death singing style, and all of a sudden the song wakes up musically and vocally and we find ourselves with pure Death on our hands, and so it continues throughout the song until it (and the album) ends.
Nir Haviv
