Fast Rites: because sometimes brevity is fundamental.
Whatever the band’s conscious influences may be, Eternal Evil’s The Warriors Awakening Brings the Unholy Slaughter sounds Teutonic in aesthetic. From the unrelentingly guitar-forward POV to the frantic double bass and appropriately raw production—courtesy of Death Breath’s Robert Pehrsson, no less—there’s an almost workmanlike, studied chaos that feels early Sodom-like in spirit. That commitment to distilling frenzy to its purest form gives the Swedes’ debut a charm that masks faults that might sink lesser bands.
Eternal Evil knows and plays in one gear. Equal parts Venom, Sodom, Kreator, Destruction, and other dark bands playing heavy music in one gear, the band’s understanding of dynamics is rooted not in change of pace but in the layer upon layer of riffs that keeps things moving at breakneck speed. One of those layers is Tobias Ozzy Lindström’s awesome leads, the finest examples being on “Terror of the Sphinx” and “Rise of Death.” These leads play a particularly important role on the otherwise orthodox The Warriors, which might feel monotonous were it not for the distinct stamp of Lindström’s leads.
If The Warriors is the foundation from which Eternal Evil wants to build its career, it’s a promising one. Not only does the band check all the boxes you’d want a black/thrash band to check, speed and snarl among them, but it earns additional style points for the occasional atonal lead. Though the songwriting would be more memorable were there just a bit more hook, The Warriors is a fun listen that hints at greater things to come.
