ETERNAL STORM – A Giant Bound To Fall

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://eternalstorm.bandcamp.com/

The debut album by the Spanish progressive melodeathsters Eternal Storm was a perfect blend of the melodic and the brutal with both aspects as genuinely in its proper extreme, and I heralded that fact in my review here. There is always trepidation and anxiety that accompanies any band’s sophomore release and critics (for it may often be too early to call them fans) are split into two camps which often disavow their initial claims post-release. On one hand, we expect the same sheer brilliance that tore us apart (in a good way), on the other, we don’t want to get the same album. Some call exactly that Machine Head’s The More Things Change¹⁹⁹⁷ after the excellent Burn My Eyes¹⁹⁹⁴, while others, like me, found it an equally great follow up. And so it is with Eternal Storm’s A Giant Bound To Fall²⁰²⁴ released on February 16th on CD, on May 15th on vinyl and cassette, via Transcending Obscurity Records. It was an apparent disappointment to the folks at Angry Metal Guy (AMG, 3/5) whom they had given 4/5 for the debut while seriously considering 4.5. However, I, having listened to it 5 times, consider it a worthy follow up that avoids both aforementioned trappings.

Except for one significant flaw (I will explain later but thus the score) I noticed along with AMG, I find this new album not so far removed from the debut so as to call it a completely different work. In comparing the two, I would say that while Come The Tide²⁰¹⁹ had melodeath tracks which were gently and briefly interspersed with ambient transitions within them, on A Giant Bound To Fall²⁰²⁴ these transitions are about equal with melodeath which is what frustrated AMG who called it “a total Opethization”, and with which, while partly agreeing, I would add Between The Buried And Me, Pink Floyd and The Cure as equally influential, and, might I add, the ratio of brutal to melodic, again, masterful. All of that makes this follow up structurally inferior while, musically, more interesting than the debut. Makes sense?

There is a sense in which we are not so much getting the same album twice but simply a sequel to the debut, a continuation of that same concept, as Come The Tide²⁰¹⁹ was about reaching a sacred mountain and A Giant Bound To Fall²⁰²⁴ about conquering giants that try to keep us from reaching that mountain, both Biblical concepts (Christ’s mountain of ascension and David’s conquering of Goliath, respectively) purposely or not. Yet it’s still a different album and it had to be this way since we are dealing with a different lineup. Daniel “Kheryon” Jimeno (vocals, bass-2019) and Mateo Novati (drums-2019) left replaced by current Persefone vocalist Daniel Rodríguez Flys (2019-vocals, guitars) and current Aversio Humanitatis drummer Jonathan Heredia, to assist current Cancer bassist Daniel Maganto (bass, guitars) and Jaime Torres (guitars, additional vocals) who had recorded the debut. But that’s not all for the album features a large number of guest appearances: Aborted’s vocalist Sven de Caluwé on “A Dim Illusion”, Paul Rodríguez Flys (violin) and (departed) Kheryon on “Last Refuge”, Eloi Boucherie (additional vocals) on “Lone Tree Domain”, Javier Fernández Milla (keyboards, synthesizers,) Persefone drummer Sergi Verdeguer Moyano (additional vocals) on the title track, Cancer and Wormed drummer Gabriel Valcázar (additional drums and percussion throughout,) and last and absolutely not least, Witherscape, Nightingale, ex-Anathema, ex-Bloodbath and ex-Edge Of Sanity musician and producer Dan Erland Swanö (additional vocals) on “The Sleepers” where “we have gone astray, the sleepers of our age.” Considering, therefore, how much change happened between the two albums we can both expect much and be privy to disappointment due to raised expectations…bound to fall.

In light of that, let us address the, by now, roaring elephant in the room: structure. What’s frustrating is that structurally this album is on par with Opeth, Between The Buried And Me, Pink Floyd or The Cure (“Last Refuge” ending so Disintegration¹⁹⁹⁸) best works until we get to the back to back (although everything here is back to back,) “The Sleepers” and “The Void”, particularly the former. In and of themselves, both tracks are great, however, they are (and here, again, I agree with AMG reviewer,) essentially, the same song twice. Back to back, mind you. AMG calls the album bloated and calls for editing but, whether or not it needs it, it would make a whole lot of more sense to have joined the two tracks and named that one 12:54 minute giant (no pun intended… or is there?) “The Sleepers” than to split the same track in two with two different names. However, as I tend to be more obsevant than the average hamster, it did not escape me that both tracks also have the exact same length (6:27) which brings me to theorize that there may be a purpose behind this awkward arrangement. The opener, “An Abyss of Unreason” (cool name, eh?) is a 13:35 minute giant track that, we are told in the title, is bound to fall, something that Eternal Storm raises the glass to in the closing title track. Might the two-part “The Sleepers” arrangement be that very fall, represented by a split in exact half, they drink to? The only thing that militates against that theory is two different names, instead of (since we are clearly fans of Wish You Were Here¹⁹⁷⁵ Pink Floyd, especially the 9-part “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”,) “The Sleepers Pt. 1” and “The Sleepers Pt. 2: The Void”. This is why I’d seriously considered giving the album 5.5/6 but eventually decided that 5.4 (the actual score I would sincerely give) is still not it, the arrangement and the naming actually detracting from the listening pleasure.

Other than the aforementioned flaw, there’s nothing really to complain about – from the heavily Satanica¹⁹⁹⁹ and Thelema6²⁰⁰⁰ Behemoth-ian 1,2 punch of “An Abyss of Unreason” and “A Dim Illusion” (which, too, tips the hat to Reload¹⁹⁹⁷ Metallica) through the slightly inferior “There Was A Wall” (as the one in the 2-disc 1979 Pink Floyd classic?) or, the only perfect track, and, therefore, my favorite, “Last Refuge” (which rivals “Of Winter And Treason” from the debut,) wisely chosen as the first single, onto “Lone Tree Domain” which concludes in a manner of a reprise of the ending of Come The Tide²⁰¹⁹ although with different, more Gojiran melody (complete with Joe Duplantier-like screams) before giving way to our troubled twins I mentioned earlier, and with the instrumental “Eclipse” strategically placed to split the album in half – this is a marvelous work from a band who matures with leaps and bounds on merely 2nd full length and I will definitely watch their further steps with great interest.