Album Review: Eternity's End - Embers of War
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
Bold, brash and unashamedly speed filled power metal, German outfit Eternity’s End return with their third album, ‘Embers of War’ and it’s stunningly good. The caveat here is that if you don’t like over-the-top extravagance, dual guitars, blasting drums and soaring high vocals, you should keep on walking. For this is technical power metal at its most intense.
Formed in 2014 by Christian Muenzner whose career until then had centred on the technical death metal style with the likes of Obscura, ‘Embers of War’ grapples with themes of horror, war, Sci-Fi, and fantasy, inspired by writers such as Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap. It does this in such a relentless manner that you’ll need some respite at the end of the 45 minutes.
Eternity’s End have had several changes throughout their musical journey and ‘Embers of War’ is no different with bassist Linus Klausenitzer returning to the fray, linking once more with powerhouse drummer Hannes Grossmann, vocalist Iuri Sanson and new guitarist Justin Hombach alongside Muenzner.
Storytelling is great, but you need to have the chops to back it up. That is here in spades as the band gel so tightly that you’ll need a spanner to prise them apart. Not only do you have phenomenal playing, with the guitar work at times breath-taking, but there is a wonderful quality to the compositions that see them compare favourably to German greats such as Helloween, Iron Savior, Gamma Ray and Blind Guardian. Take the wonderfully rousing epic finale of the title track, a science fiction adventure set far in the future. It’s majestic and full throttle.
From the raucous opening of ‘Dreadnought (Voyage of the Damned)’ with its historical themes, the thunderous heavy metal of ‘Call of the Valkyries’ through to the anthemic’ Shaded Heart’ which cleverly utilises keyboards and classic vocal harmonies and the simple speed metal shenanigans of ‘Deathrider’, this is played at blistering pace and a locked in rhythm section that see Grossmann playing at unbelievable tempo at times. This is excellence from start to finish, with a superb production, and suitably it’s an album that demonstrates that when it comes to this type of music, no-one can touch the Germans.
