Release date:
6th March 2015Type:
Full-lengthLabel: Svart Records.
Members:
Daniel Moilanen – Drums
Johan Bäckman – Bass
Nicklas Rudolfsson – Guitars and vocals.
Johan Bäckman – Bass
Nicklas Rudolfsson – Guitars and vocals.
Eternal Sleepwalker - Track
listing:
1. Ascending.
2. Road to the Fire.
3. Bow Down.
4. Eat the Sun.
5. Eternal Sleepwalker.
6. Heavy as Death.
7. Beyond the Riphean Mountains.
2. Road to the Fire.
3. Bow Down.
4. Eat the Sun.
5. Eternal Sleepwalker.
6. Heavy as Death.
7. Beyond the Riphean Mountains.
Review
If there’s
anything more menacing than the sight of a longboat full of
bloodthirsty Swedish Vikings, it’s the sound of three bloodthirsty
Swedish death metallers. We’re currently experiencing an era in
extreme music where the almighty riff is taking a backseat to dense,
sonic atmosphere, and that is never more apparent than in the fresh
Death Metal being peddled from all four corners of the globe. Where
coherency and orthodoxy fail to push certain boundaries and can no
longer hold the attention of fans and musicians endlessly searching
for a stronger dose, the realm of ambiance and atmosphere is as
deserving of further experimentation as anything. The Swedish Death
Metal bands of old knew this long ago, and the tradition is being
carried on by the aptly named Heavydeath.
Heavydeath have been incredibly
prolific with their releases since 2014 and the long slew of demo
tapes speak for themselves, all of which seem to act as a kind of
countdown to this, their first full-length, Eternal Sleepwalker.
Recorded in the summer of 2014, there is a certain impression that
this record, as well as everything that lead up to it, has been
planned and meticulously executed to the band’s liking. You only
have to look briefly at what they’ve done in their short time as a
band to see what kind of work ethic is at hand, and listening to
Eternal Sleepwalker is evidence enough of their devotion to this
dark, crypt-dwelling sound. This is a record that is every bit as
somnambulant as its title suggests.
Each track melts and solidifies into
the next with arches that go mostly unnoticed, just as time and place
hold little effect in dreams and nightmares. “Ascending” kicks in
like a hypnotic sedative, sluggish guitars moan over driving, but not
overly enthusiastic, bass and drums, before giving way to “Road to
the Fire”, a nightmarish and weary charge that exemplifies Nicklas
Rudolfsson’s truly haunting vocal style. “Bow Down” twitches to
life as the album begins to wake up, to a degree, a fact made even
more apparent when “Eat the Sun” arrives on the scene
surprisingly with something of a more traditional driving crunch to
it. The album’s title track halts the speed and brings us back to a
kind of comatose Thrash sound that stomps and stumbles in drunken
anger which leads us to the appropriately titled “Heavy as Death”
that bogs down even further to a slow, hammering discharge that
evokes all the best of Celtic Frost. Eternal Sleepwalker comes to a
close with psychotropic booms and echoes, titled “Beyond the
Riphean Mountains”, and its feedback swept gloom acts as a kind of
end credits to the funerary rite.
As stated previously, there seems to
have been a lot of work put into Eternal Sleepwalker in order to make
it quite literally sound like a nightmare. It’s not in the sounds,
but in how the sounds are born and how they die in the wall of sound.
Notes materialize and disappear in spectral fashion throughout and
this compliments Rudolfsson’s gaping and horrific vocal delivery,
and this marriage not only proudly represents the Swedish Death Metal
sound, but actually takes it to different places. It’s a menacing
piece of work that will be met with arms wide open by those with a
taste for Death and Doom, but would certainly prove too dense for a
first-time listener.
Written by Liam Doyle
Thanks to Nathan for the promo.
Eternal Sleepwalker will be available to buy on Vinyl from Svart Records on March 6th 2015.
For More Information
