From War to Darkness

Eternal Majesty is a rather unknown band, even in my own country France. I really don't understand this unknown status: before "From War To Darkness", this band already released a live album and a split with one of the most important bands around here: I name Antaeus. So I don't know how they remain that underground with such music.

The album starts really strong with "Soyons les Pierres du Temple Noir" which means "Be the stones of the black temple" and despite the pretty cliché lyrics the music is awesome: the production is acceptable and turns the general sound of the music into some kind of flow with buzzing guitars. Behind this buzz the guitar riffs are well-done: fast and incisive and the bass doesn't follow all the time the guitars, creating its own riffs, slower than the guitars. Then, the vocals... This guy vomits his hate, I guess he sublimates his dark thoughts through this album, howling his guts during instrumental passages.

After a first astonishing track, I expect the same for the following and I wasn't disillusioned! The second song isn't impressive but "Le Christ Roi" and "On My Throne" kick ass, fast & brutal as the first song, with these bloody guitar full of hate, the melodic bass and those shrieks. The drums? Nothing special, just fast and brutal with blast beats.
With this song ends the first part of this album: the "War" part. This part is well named, much more impressive than your average brutal black metal bands are able to do: this is much more violent in the execution than "Panzer Division Marduk" or some reference album like this one.

With the "Darkness", the music loses some power (although the singer screams as much as the first part) to create some kind of atmosphere with slower riffs. Songs seem to be longer, but it's just an impression maybe because the variations aren't as clear than the first part. Too much brutality might bore the listener, but with some mid tempo riffs, I kept my attention onto the music. But actually a song like "Pandemonium" is rather fast and brutal too... but nothing in comparison with the "War" part. Then the albums closes with a melodic outro with a clean guitar and bass, maybe the calm after the storm, why not?

The booklet is nice: pictures of the band and the lyrics, classic, sober, but effective.

Overall this album is very good, far better than the second album released by this band. This album is split into two parts and it's easy to distinguish these parts. Recommanded for fans of brutal and hateful Black Metal, yet with some melodic riffs between pits of brutality. Furthermore, the vocalist is excellent.