Australian Gothic doom act The Eternal came into my life with their 2018 opus Waiting for the Endless Dawn and caused me much consternation. I loved their depressive Paradise Lost / Sentenced / Katatonia style, but struggled with the sheer length of the compositions, which ranged from 10 minutes upward to 20. I underscored the album despite some amazing material due to its sheer size, and I regret that still. 2024s Skinwalker saw them tone down the running times somewhat, and it was another glum victory with huge moments of sadboi glory. Now, The Eternal drop a mini-album/EP named Celestial, and lo and behold, it’s economical in size and scope.1 You get 4 new tracks, a remix from their sophomore release, and one short intro.2 It’s not much on paper, but it hits way above its weight and again proves these Aussie doomers have something special going on that every doom fan needs to be aware of.

After a throwaway intro, “Celestial Veil” comes in to mop the floor with your emotions with a vulgar display of poignant Gothic doom. It has strong similarities to the classic Black Sun Aeon and Dawn of Solace playbook of Tuomas Saukkonen, with weepy guitar lines and plaintive clean singing designed to fill your heart with grief. The chorus is so perfect and gripping that you can’t unhear it after one exposure. And the most amazing part? It’s relatively short at just over 6 minutes! “It All Ends” is even shorter and carries the torch of despondency with another downcast paean to misery that’s emotive, morbid, and catchy, with a killer chorus designed to stick like a prison shank.

The hits keep coming on “Bleeding into Light,” which milks the band’s streamlined template for all its worth. It’s simple but uber-memorable, part Goth rock and part doom. It works a charm, and it’s so easy to listen to as it hollows out your soul. The big surprise comes with “Casting Down Shadows,” where the band takes their core approach and layers it with epical Middle Eastern symphonics to arrive at something grandiose like a doom version of Led Zeppelin’s immortal “Kashmir.” It creates a strange hypnotic effect, and you lose yourself in the haze of time and space. It’s a really interesting song and shows a side of The Eternal that I want to hear more of. Things round out with “Everlasting MMXXVI,” a remix of a track off their 2004 Sleep of Reason album. It works here, and though the overall style is more stripped-down and Goth rock-based. These shorter style cuts remind me of the early stuff from Deathwhite, and that’s a good thing.

The Eternal know how to nail their chosen style to the wall, giving the Gothic/melodoom fan everything they could want. Mark Kelson’s vocals are perfect for this kind of dour doom, and he sells negative emotions by the truckload without having to strain or contort his voice to get the point across. His sullen crooning is beguiling, and when he steps the urgency up, things really pop. Kelson and Richie Poate are a potent guitar tandem, often keeping things minimalist while crafting classic Goth/melodoom harmonies that remind of what Greg Macintosh (Paradise Lost) does so well. Their playing is the mortuary drape that covers everything in cold hopelessness. This isn’t the most flashy of bands musically, but they don’t need to be to ensnare and bewitch you.

In my review for Skinwalker, I wrote, “If they ever learn to resist their fatter angels, they’ll drop a magnum opus that will shake the heavens.” Here we find The Eternal associating with angels on Ozempic, and the results are impressive indeed. I’m anxious to see if Celestial is indicative of where the band is heading. I’m fully on board if that’s the case, and if not, I can deal with the zaftig angels too. I’m easy when the doom is this sexy.



Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Label: Reigning Phoenix
Websites: the-eternal.com | facebook.com/theeternal | instagram.com/theeternalofficial
Releases Worldwide: January 16th, 2026

Theurgion – All Under Heaven Review

By Steel Druhm

I’ll give it to the folks at Profound Lore’s PR department. As I processed the All Under Heaven debut by unheralded doom-death act Theurgion and prepared to hurl it into the reeking promo sump, I felt the irresistible urge to take it for myself due to this subtle teaser tidbit: “comprised of seven sculptured sonic monuments that hail those that came before Solitude Aeturnus, OLD Katatonia, OLD Anathema/Paradise Lost, first October Tide LP….” Those are mighty big FFO nods, and I fell victim to the hype like a lowly n00b, tucking the promo in my ape pouch and skulking into the sultry night. The PR spinners didn’t lie either. What Theurgion do is totally what I want doom-death to be. I initially feared a frightful blow to the Score Safety Counter might be as inevitable as a hangover after 5 glasses of Doc Grier‘s cactus pruno punch. The atmosphere is rife with weepy melancholy. The heavy doom riffs are there and effectively crushing. What could go wrong with so much rightness happening? Did I find the next Fvneral Fvkk?

Though I’m not much for instrumental openers, I can’t knock “Mourning Tide” at all. It’s a tremendously moody, engaging table-setter promising an album’s worth of despondent despair, and it’s well executed from soup to sadboi nuts. When the first proper track, the 10-plus minute “Lavender & Silver,” kicked into existence with mournful chanting, weepy trilling, crunching doom riffs, and booming death vocals, Steel was in his happy place. As the pained and plaintive clean vocals arrived, they seemed solid and appropriate; a forlorn mid-range croon with muscle behind it, sort of halfway between Danzig and The Cult’s Ian Astbury. Things kept building upward toward greatness, with me held in thrall. For the first 7 minutes, all was right in the world, but as things started to wind to a conclusion, the clean vocals of vocalist/drummer L.C. started to go off the rails as he reached for ever higher registers with his macho man bellowing. He starts to sound like an old, tired Danzig, and increasingly struggles to stay in tune. It ultimately doesn’t ruin what is a very effective doom-death epic, but the chinks in the armor become very visible by the end. These vocal issues resurface immediately in follow-up “Thrice-Named” as L.C. tries to sound anguished and tormented. As the album develops, those shout/sing/bellows become more problematic. Eventually, you feel relief when he lapses into death roars. This is a real shame, too, as the song has a lot going for it. It reminds me of the early days of Deathwhite, and I love the Goth-infused atmosphere Theurgion craft here.

There are many high-quality moments to be found on All Under Heaven, and the band can certainly write compelling doom-death epics that grab the listener by the ghost nuts and squeeze. But the vocals become a kind of wrecking ball blasting through the carefully curated moods to bring disorder and irritation to the listener. On “The Storm,” L.C. tempers his delivery enough to beguile and enchant on a track filled with vibrant guitar work and a strong Enshine-meets-Primordial vibe. It’s a beautifully glum and downcast little number, and it works because the vocals largely compliment the music instead of sucker punching it with a sack full of antique doorknobs. Unfortunately, on the 12-minute title track, L.C. overdoes his shout-singing to the point where you’d gladly fork over funds to send him to Count Orlok’s quiet time retreat deep in the Carpathian Mountains. One could also quibble about the 3 instrumental interludes, including the intro and outro. They aren’t bad, but aside from the opener, they feel unnecessary.

The real shame of it all is that L.C. is actually a capable vocalist. His death roars are fully on point, and he can manage effective cleans when he stays in a middle range and refrains from forcing his upper range to the point where control flies out the window. He’s a case study on less is MOAR, and proves that MOAR can be way too much. Guitarists A.P. and R.F. do a rock-solid job across the album, creating richly melancholic soundscapes without forgetting to use the doom riff cudgel to keep the listener honest. There are nods to all the bands name-dropped in the PR material, especially Paradise Lost and Katatonia, and they know how to deliver grimly beautiful doom-death. If we are going solely on instrumentation, this thing is close to a 4.0. With vocals added, things get slicey dicey and make scoring Under All Heaven a real trial by fire.

There’s a lot to love on Theurgion’s debut opus. The atmosphere is dark and mournful, and the guitar work is inspired. Hell, even the vocals deliver the doomy goods about half the time. I struggled a lot with how to rate this thing, but ultimately, your enjoyment will come down to how well you vibe with L.C.’s “unique” style. For me, his “elderly Danzig on the toilet” style killed too many otherwise glorious moments. Mileage may vary, and I sincerely hope it does, because Theurgion have the potential to become something great.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Profound Lore
Websites: Too mysterious for the webz?
Releases Worldwide: August 8th, 2025

#25 #2025 #AllUnderHeaven #AmericanMetal #Aug25 #DeathMetal #Deathwhite #DoomMetal #Katatonia #ParadiseLost #ProfoundLoreRecords #Review #Reviews #Theurgion

Counting Hours – The Wishing Tomb Review

By Steel Druhm

Tears freezing in the cutting winter winds. Life’s blood staining the freshly fallen snow. These are the things that bring Steel to the graveyard. Naturally, I love my sadboi doom as well, and the long-defunct Finnish act Rapture in particular. Their style of highly melancholic melodoom resonated deeply in my cold dead chest cavity, and though they’ve been gone since 2005 I still go back to those albums regularly. When the two guitarists of Rapture reunited to form Counting Hours and dropped the excellent debut The Will back in 2019, I was ecstatic. It was as close to getting new Rapture material as we were ever going to get and they hit all the same grim feelz as they fused the early days of Katatonia with Dawn of Solace into a cold grave of an album. Now a few years later we get the eagerly anticipated follow-up, The Wishing Tomb. Can this melodoom super group deliver the same volume of sadness, despair, and depression to my doorstep and bid me enjoy of deep sorrow? Let us pray.

After a highly effective mood-setting instrumental opener that manages to wring some emotion from you, things kick off in truly grand fashion with “Timeless Ones.” This is Grade A Finnish sad doom at its weepy best, done by folks from Rapture and Shape of Despair, so they know exactly what they’re doing. It’s heavy at its core and overflowing with weepy, mournful guitarwork designed to pluck your heartstrings in that “dead puppy in the snow” kind of way. It swings between the works of Tuomos Saukkonen (Black Sun Aeon / Dawn of Solace) and Brave Murder Day Katatonia, with the Rapture influence never completely out of sight. The chorus is spun gold and the whole thing is poignant and captivating. A big part of that is due to the stellar vocals of Ilpo Paasela who excels at both death roars and clean, plaintive singing. I especially love the downtrodden riffage as Paasela intones somberly intones, “I saw the trail of stars….” The quality sads keep flowing on “Away I Flow” which smacks strongly of Deathwhite in the guitarwork and Dawn of Solace in the vocals, which is a lethal combination imparting powerful magic to the basic doom formula. Another major high point arrives with “All That Blooms (Needs to Die)” which is especially loaded with forlorn trilling and a hefty Fall of the Leafe vibe.

The Wishing Tomb offers so many great examples of gloomy Finn-core, that naming all of them would make my review unwieldy. I must however mention the brilliance of “No Closure” where the Rapture spirit is especially strong and Paasela delivers his best vocal work. The equally impactful “A Mercy Fall” must also be given its due for being so damn catchy despite its downtrodden delivery. There are a few minor stumbles though too. The title track is a good song with plenty of depressive atmosphere, but it’s overlong at over 7 minutes and its dreamy, sleepy drift lacks the punch of the album’s best cuts. The 7-minute closer “The Well of Failures” is much better and has truly monumental moments, but it could stand a bit of judicious trimming. These are very small complaints about an amazing, however. The 48-plus minute runtime doesn’t feel too vast and the album flows well. It’s a grim joy and one I can’t seem to stop getting lost in.

Rapture alumni Jarno Salomaa and Tomi Ullgrén walk a delicate line between recreating their old band’s sound and doing something new. They excel at melacholic leads and harmonies but don’t forget to bring the metal hammer down regularly with weight doom riffs and heavy chugga-luggery. They’ve crafted some beautiful moments here and every song has at least one that will bring an iron tear to your feeble eyes. Ilpo Paasela was a revelation on the debut and he’s even better here. His clean singing is much like Tuomas Tuominen (ex-Fall of the Leafe, ex-The Man-Eating Trees) and the anonymous singer of Deathwhite, and he sells the material perfectly, sounding heartbroken and inconsolable. His death roars are powerful as well, bringing the full weight of grief to the funerary music. This is a band that knows their chosen genre inside and out and crafts fresh-sounding killers from a well-worn template.

As much as I adore The Will, The Wishing Tomb is clearly the superior work. Counting Hours have the perfect formula and know exactly how to get to the heart of Steel. This will undoubtedly be one of the top albums of 2024 and right now it’s hard to imagine it not ending up in the top spot. I’m happy to be wrong though, because whatever tops this heartbreaking work of staggering genius will be something completely out of this world. Get this in your ears immediately and get sad.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Ardua Music
Websites: countinghours2.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/countinghoursfinland
Releases Worldwide: February 23rd, 2024

#2024 #40 #ArduaMusic #BraveMurderDay #CountingHours #DawnOfSolace #DeathMetal #Deathwhite #DoomMetal #FallOfTheLeafe #Feb24 #FinnishMetal #Katatonia #Rapture #Review #Reviews #ShapeOfDespair #TheWill #TheWishingTomb

Aujourd'hui sur Blog à part – Deathwhite: For a Black Tomorrow

Je vous avais déjà parlé de Deathwhite, projet aussi américain mystérieux de “dark metal”, à l’occasion de la sortie de leur EP Solitary Martyr. Trois ans plus tard, on n’en sait pas beaucoup plus sur le projet, sinon qu’il revient avec un premier album, For a Black Tomorrow.

#deathwhite #metal-progressif #usa

https://alias.erdorin.org/deathwhite-for-a-black-tomorrow/