Album Review: Eternal Drak – The Violence of Time
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
I first stumbled across Canadian based blackened thrashers Eternal Drak when I reviewed last years “The Warrior Order” EP and I was impressed. Now, with the release of their sixth album, mastermind Andres Martinez Torres (Drakar) and Michel Amyot return with 10 new songs that will simultaneously brighten and darken your world.
As the band have commented, “the album frames time as a hostile force” as a ticking clock signals the start of “We Force It To Speak” before the guitars take control. The harsh vocals of Drakar feel like an assault, yet they have layered flamenco style guitars over a dark yet atmospheric background. It’s a cracking start but the blistering bass of “The Unborn Paths Rot” ups the pace and energy levels significantly. This genre doesn’t always do catchy songs, but this one kept repeating in my head hours afterwards, especially the mid-section riff.
The band have continually tried to evolve, whilst staying true to their roots, and on “Me Hice Simultaneo” a song looking at the way obsession speeds everything up, it has a slower, more menacing pattern over the venomous Latino lyrics. “The Blasphemy of Time” sees that blackened thrash speed return and it’s interjected by a wonderful operatic style vocal allowing the harmonies to clash, as the aggressive mid-point solo sways through the melody.
The start of “Chaos is the Law” feels like a mythical creature coming to life and stumbling onwards to destroy everything before it, as the song focuses on the fact that time doesn’t preserve anything. The pace ramps up in the final third with the guitars going into overdrive leading into “Where Cause is Buried”. I’m enjoying the bass lines that flow across these songs, and there’s pockets of explosive guitars that flood the rhythm and penetrate the compositions.
Within many of the tracks, the duo offers a variety of appealing tempos that keeps you wondering what’s going to happen next. “Across the Watching Veils” has an echoed vocal that adds to the villainous, more depraved element of the song but that’s what I’ve come to expect from this band. Drakar’s vocals get more impressive with each unsavoury sounding lyric perfectly matching the demonic tones, and on the slowed down “Breathing Once Again” there’s a quite dramatic momentum change, with cleaner vocals on a stripped-down rhythm as your perceptions begin to shift and your senses warped.
The devilish intent returns alongside their legendary pace and power on “The Cosmos Rejects You” and the riff is a proper headbanger, that had my head moving instantly. What’s also pleasing is that the songs don’t drag on, these two don’t waste time, and fill every moment with a memory, as they finish with “No Direction – Total War” a short, sharp blast of blackened noise that shows that time doesn’t guide you, but you need to make time in your life to experience and enjoy the deathly screams and raucous riffs of Eternal Drak.
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