...and So the Night Became

I will be the first to admit that black metal is not my favorite genre, I much prefer brutal and tech death to most others. This statement stands true, unless I'm talking about this album. I think that ratings should carry a certain weight behind them and only the cream of the crop deserve even over a 90%, let alone a 100%. This is the only album I have ever heard that is fully deserving of a perfect score, solely because it is a perfect album in every way I can think of. Anyone who is a fan of metal in general can find something they will enjoy here and everyone should listen to it at some point in their life; it is enlightening, magnificent and will change the way you look at music forever.

Aeternus has had a long and storied career, involving lineup changes and even genre transitions, whom some say was arguably a bad idea, but I think they are one of the few bands that did, over time, successfully change from black metal to more straightforward death metal. For this album, we had the ideal lineup and here is why I say that: Ares, Morrigan and Vrolok transcended what it means to be musicians for this album. I share an insight with a fellow reviewer, when I say that they were no longer individuals when they created this jewel, they converged their minds to become one omniscient being, capable of conjuring a product that is flawless. No instrument overpowers the others in the mixing or in the performances and everyone was on the same page when this was written. I wont go over every song, just the ones I think are very important to the whole picture.

The album opener "There's No Wine like the Blood's Crimson" starts with a 5 minute awe-inspiring, setting builder that gets the listener ready for the journey and tone of the album. After the long percussive piece ends, the main riff starts and you know something is going to happen. The first vocals of the album are one the most spine-tingling moments in music I've ever heard; Ares comes in with his powerful growl and yells, "Bloodred sky, bloodred fields, the sun in it's last breath, providing the shadows of the trees". If you like these kinds of vocals and you don't get full body chills from listening to that, then you're not human. After the first sentence you can assume what the album will be about, and the rest of the lyrics portray Ares killing armies of men with no remorse; a great subject for the genre and actually different than most. The song is very long at over 13 minutes, but the length plays a key role in the tone of the song and the album as a whole. This song is plenty enough for the listener to want more and go through the whole album.

The third song, "Warrior of the Crescent Moon" is my personal favorite of the album and perhaps my favorite black metal song of all time. It opens with absolutely gorgeous acoustic guitars, then almost instantly transitions to the darkest and heaviest tone of the album, with lower tuned guitars and slower brooding drums the keep the pace slow yet still moving. One thing that gets me about this song is the use of the keyboards throughout, they are only used when it is seems they are necessary and come in at perfect times to break the monotony that can be the guitars and drums. This seems to be the story for a couple songs on the album and it is another reason this album is so great, they don't over use the keyboards and synths to create mood like most other black metal bands, but only to amplify it in certain places.

The album has a steadiness to it that is present through most of it, but it never permeates or overstays its welcome; there are a huge number of timing changes and even some really fast thrashy sections like in "When the Crow's Shadow Falls" that could put some thrash bands to shame. There is also a large variance in tone of guitars throughout whether it be extremely heavy riff based songs or more upbeat melodic parts in places. Alone with a huge variance in the guitars, the vocals may be the strongest part of this entire piece of art. Ares has a range that very few people can compare to and he shows off his extremely low growls, powerful screams/shrieks and even some clean vocals like in "Ild Dans". All of the pieces are so well presented, while you listen to it, you don't think that the guitars are sweet, or the drums are cool; you just look at the big picture and try not to release your bowels.

This album is all about story telling and no good story can be finished without a climax and an ending, and "... and So the Night Became" is an obvious climax of the album. Even if you didn't know it was the last actual song of the album, I guarantee you could tell just by listening to it and reading/hearing the lyrics; "With horned wings and cold minds, the dwelling and feeding, it is complete. Now we rise!". A great way to wrap up the great story that unfolds around you; a story I will not spoil because it is worth discovering for your own. The last track, "Fyrndeheimen" is an instrumental that is very militaristic in nature, for a good reason. At the same time, it adds elements of folk and pagan metal including instruments typically found in those genres. It is a great resolution and a perfect ending to the adventure of this album. One thing that bothers me, but is due to my own ignorance, is that the story has certain holes in it due to some of the songs not being in English, but this can't really be a complaint now, can it?

To mention some of the outside elements of the album; the production is perfect. It is in no way over-produced and not raw sounding to where you cant hear every element that is before you. The artwork is not fantastic, but Aeternus is not really known for their artwork on the front, but for what is on the inside. There are 2 different cover arts, the Karmageddon Media one and the original Hammerheart Records one.

This album is a must for anyone who has ever had an interest in metal, whether it be folk, death, black, or anything in between. This is true dark metal and is a necessity to all; I highly suggest you give this a listen. An album that you can listen to for eternity and never get tired of is an album worth a 100%, and this is one of those. I recommend you listen to it in order. There's no wine like the bloods crimson, warrior of the crescent moon, Ild dans.

There are classic albums and then there are masterpieces. Albums which grow grand with age and more glorious and supreme even against an ever increasing catalog of excellent choices. Somewhere out there amongst all the music I've ever listened to in the past eighteen years an incredibly small number of albums have become mainstays in my listening, beacons of perfection to the dross and mediocrity, examples of pristine inspiration and execution. For almost all bands, after years and years of striving, they never create anything resembling even an average-quality album. Some bands, with the right combination of artistry might assemble a work which surpasses most, becomes an inspiration... an example of the fineness of a genre, something more than average. And then out of the depths of obscurity arises a crafted heirloom more than the musicians involved and the context surrounding it. Within black metal a lot of albums claim these titles and more... many of which are classics less for their music and more for that context. I can't speak for them but one black metal album has outlived, surpassed and decimated all others in all areas.

Where Beyond The Wandering Moon literally wandered around for parts of the album, finding the trail and hidden grottoes deep amidst the dark flora across several excellent tracks such as Vind, Sentinels of Darkness and Sworn Revenge, ...And So The Night Became became a connected soul within that cimmerian world. With lunar guidance and celestial fates beaming down, Ares, Morrigan and Vrolok ceased to be individual members of a band, blending and morphing into a single mindset and lone essence. If the overtones here are of the essential elements which Black Metal requires, and those odors are plentiful, robust and pure, it's the more subtle fragrances which emanate. They've drawn me in since the beginning with this album. Fundamentally for me, there is this overwhelming sense of grandeur and royalty here. Aeternus, through music have created the architecture of regality. It is evidenced in tracks like "Warrior of the Crescent Moon" and "Ild Dans." In the fearlessness of "As I March" and "Blodsverging."

There are parts of the songs present here, which simply defy simple round-about descriptions. The five minute intro of "There's No Wine Like The Blood's Crimson," is a marvel. It builds into this epic exploratory emotion within, and when the main riff to the track kicks in, you can begin to create a world around you. It's the tentativeness of riding up to the dark gates of Satan's castle. It's the hesitation of being in an unwelcoming environment without any chance of return. You are thrown headlong into a Gothic nightmare, the kind Bram Stoker wrote about in the final pages of Lair of the White Worm. You can imagine somehow being surrounded by ancient walls and blood-soaked parapets, drenched in the rain of an endless storm. The echo of downpours - the ceaseless double bass - and the crash of thunder - massive fills on the toms. You've opened the door, expecting some respite from the madness and yet, you step through the threshold into "As I March." The field is coated in dew. The enemy is in sight and you are rushing them with spears and swords leveled at their faces. There is an uncanny slowness to the whole thing, a respect on the parts of all involved in the skirmish. You are not there for any Lord or King. It is the battle you crave. You call out your liege to the ground you were born from, you claim you allegiance to the blood you endeavor to spill.

Aeternus craft imagery with ease. The lyrics encapsulate the primitive and the refined elements of both opposites, dredging the soul to rediscover emotions long since forgotten by mankind - a more simple way of thought and yet, a more complex way of understanding the world. They proclaim only the desire to return to the mud and the grave, to be once again one with Her; blood to the rivers and flesh to the mountains. The arrangement and exquisite acoustic playing on tracks like Warrior Of The Crescent Moon, When The Crow's Shadows Fall and closer Fyrndeheimen hearkens to the early Empyrium albums but where Empyrium reveled in bringing the Pastoral to the forefront, Aeternus here drag forward a yearning for that aforementioned simpler life and yet the hopelessness that we can never return to such glorious times. We live in a world of ephemeral respect and momentary delights and we have ourselves to blame. The album shows us what could have been, where society could have gone. Less cryptically, the album shows us where Black Metal can go. It can retain all the aggression, all the hate and passion and yet be sentimental and reach into us and grab the emotions we all feel.

And yet, where Aeternus have excelled on this album truly is in the scale of the songs. There are no black or white tracks here. No one track serves it's own purpose. "As I March" opens into the reverence of "Warrior of the Crescent Moon," with it's softly mixed synths careening across layers of exquisite melody and rumbling verses. The vocals are pained and frantic. And though in many places the tracks are linear, with little repetition of parts, this creates the feeling falling forward forever through the mountains and glens and into dark caves and torch-lit cairns populated by robed priests with sheepskin cloaks and intricately carved horned helms drawing the star's light into them and glowing with ages of ritual use. "...And So The Night Became," then romps through the mid-paced "Blodsverging," the album's weakest track if it could be considered so. It still highlights vocals and melody which are such strengths of this album.

"When The Crow's Shadows Fall" begins with ancient melodies and a bittersweet lead before taking flight into one of the album's fastest and most intense tracks. It's song the grandness of death, the honor once afforded fallen warriors, the finality of courage. I've listened to this album many times and still get chills when I sit on the floor, with the lyrics in front of me and absorb every drum beat and every wail. It is the best way to appreciate this one - head down, mind open and pores soaking in each snap of the snare and every swirling keyboard passage. This is especially true on the final two tracks of the album. "Ild Dans" is to this album what "Sunwheel" may be considered to Drudkh's Autum Aurora or "Heathen Tribes" on To The Nameless Dead - and I sense a slight melodic similarity in that regard early in the song. It's an uptempo dance, a bright dawn, a sweet scent during hard times, dark nights or sweeping across a rotting battlefield. So much of the album is a dichotomy such as this, harshness paired with melody and aggressiveness paired with something gentle.

One of the most spine tingling moment is the end of Ild Dans where gates open, doors unlock and keys are turned to present an epic vista of Valhalla before the ears. Clean vocals, mixed with harsh vocals over acoustic guitars mixed with the heavier distorted tone. It's the wonder of ...And So The Night Became that these moments appear and fall much like the life of a hero, often ended too short and before respect can be shown to their actions. You must relive these moments again and again to feel satisfied and even then, you need to return to them soon afterwards to feel them again. And much like this short section the title track is a marvel. It takes everything proposed musically and puts it in context into a single soundtrack. The song is a true album climax. Two minutes in you are walking up to meet your greatest foe and the battle has commenced. You fight for your king and fellow countrymen. Aeternus have wrapped their wings around you, like a black angel, and are lifting you into the sky as you relive your life in the form of a medley of images. You are dying in service to your honor and as you are laid to rest in the Longship and the waves crash around you, you watch yourself burn.

And as ashes we return. ...And So The Night Became is a grand story. We are born, we fight, we triumph and we fail. "With horned wings and cold minds, The dwelling and feeding, it is complete. Now we rise."

Originally written for Contaminated Tones

There are moments in my life where I go totally ballistic over black metal bands, and have the urge to purchase their entire discography in one online sitting. Then, there are times where I just want to steal their stupid clown paint and build churches near their homes. As you can probably tell, when it comes to black metal, I’m extremely interchangeable. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell a masterpiece from Death Cult Armageddon when I hear one. Aeternus is, amazingly enough, a mere 3-piece side project of Obtained Enslavement and Gorgoroth. How can a side project be so much better than either of the bands it spawned from? This band will show you. Songs range from 6-11 minutes and stretch over 70 minutes, and amazingly, never get boring. The band has a feel unlike any other band. Never have I heard such strong blackened growls, militaristic (and amazingly well played) drum patterns, and such an incredible fusion between smooth, rich, beauty, and thick, distorting evil. Clean vocals even shine through on one of the later tracks, and in a way so strong, you’ll have multiple seizures. Everything starts out slow with gloomy keyboards, picks up speed, then flows into beauty, speeds up or slows down, and ends peacefully and calmly. I can honestly say, from my very first listen’s completion, I realized that this would become one of my favorite albums of all time. To sum it up, ...And So The Night Became is over an hour of thick, war-filled atmosphere, blackened and melodic death metal, and some of the most incredible musical talent I’ve ever heard. You haven’t truly worshiped dark death/black metal til you’ve heard this album. Unfortunately, these guys became more death metal (Behemoth-esque) in their more recent releases, and can’t come anywhere near the beauty and power of this album. There’s no excuse not to own this.

This one's so instantly enjoyable that for a while I thought it may have "Beyond the Wandering Moon" beat, which is no mean feat. It's basically carved from the same piece of wood; folkish melodies subtly floating backwards and forwards across a pulsing beat to produce transcendent ambient black metal with death influences.

There are a couple of reasons why I initially favoured this over "Beyond...". Firstly, even though this isn't true in a lot of cases, the compositions on this release seem longer; not through being drawn out, but by simply having more packed in. It seems that Aeternus have managed to achieve a rare thing in extreme metal; retaining a great level of focus while being more varied than before. The melodies are more initially hooky, as well, though ultimately not quite as satisfying.

There's less blasting, which was never a problem for me (I think it works to the debut's benefit) but may have been for others, but other than that the drumming is similar; throbbing and driving the melodies forward with formidable force. There are quite a few mellifluous acoustic passages, which portray to me the peace that the warriors feel while fighting ferocious battles for honour and a better world, with the heavier parts representing said battles.

The vocals are powerful growls once again, and are more prominent in the mix, giving the recording a savage edge. The drums have a less trebly sound. The production is just generally fuller, giving the album less icyness but making up for it in power.

To sum up, whilst not quite as subtle or intelligently structured, this is nearly as good as "Beyond the Wandering Moon", which means it's an absolutely essential addition to your collection.