Sometimes you gotta wait. The time may not be right for the RMR zine to take on a record. And that’s why there’s nary a peep about one given piece left to rot in the catacombs of our review pipe for long years. But once that time comes, things will move fast.
So, here the lazy geezers at the Review Desk were browsing through ‘old’ records, unfinished drafts, and lost ideas. And they came across a relatively unknown Danish band that garnered some attention in 2024 and then fell through the pipe’s greasy cracks. And there it stayed in its sumpy dungeons, patiently waiting for an unexpected discovery.
Blazing Eternity, the band’s called, proudly boasting their latest record A Certain End of Everything. And it’s funny how your brain remembers tunes not heard for years afterwards. The moment the RMR crew hit play yet again, this initial wow-effect again came back at once. This knack, allowing us to recognise music better than the spoken word, is an eerie human quirk. And it is certainly not something you can control.
So, the record hit us like one of them weighty cases of metal déjà-vu. A wave of Melodic and Doom Death Metal that won’t deny its closeness to Insomnium and – to an extent – Katatonia. Yet the band sends this your way with a mighty splash of gothic, skull-adorned whiskey. But it is this poignant melancholy that really punches through straight from the start. A style that – at its base – seems to sail pretty close to bands such as My Silent Wake. Even if the latter’s fare is way more skeletal, grimy, and not all that elaborate on melody.
Already, One Thousand Lights will mercilessly and loudly take the high ground of the band’s tear-drenched abode. Exquisitely melodic sadboi motifs and gothically tainted melancholy wash over you like some highly agitated ocean of woe. It is interesting how some bands have that ability to project emotion to the audience while others struggle with that. And in a way, this first track already sets the stage for the rest of the tracklist. Put differently, the melodies, the cathedral soundscapes and grand arrangements can be found throughout the record. The use of slowcoach tremolos together with the measured growls make the record exude an elegant blackened odor without reaching Black Metal territory outright. Meaning, A Certain End of Everything is way more measured in tone than the full-throated attack of other rough-hewn adepts of doom ‘n’ gloom.
Now, if all of the above seems to indicate that we might have a case of the repetition bug, you’re not wrong. While always slightly different, the tracks indeed seem to boast a distinct lack of variation as the tracklist progresses. And that is a pity, all of those songs are mostly very well elaborated and thought through to the end. This indeed turns a relatively benign 46 minutes of airtime into a somewhat lengthy listen at times.
That said, you will find a fair amount of good to great tracks, too. The aforementioned A Thousand Lights, the title track A Certain End of Everything, or – again – the mourning The Bells are only three standout examples. So, in essence, the album doesn’t really contain any bad apples but may have some room to improve in the future.
Ultimately, A Certain End of Everything is one of the better melancholy pieces this crew heard to date. The record is a true woe-infested feast for any Doom Metal fans out there, and especially for those with a taste for the rough-hewn squad. That said, if ever Blazing Eternity return with another slice of their gritty savoir-faire, the RMR crew will be ready to pick it up.
Well done, fellas.
Record Rating: 7/10 | Label: Mighty Music | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 19 April 2024