ETERNAL SILENCE - The Arsonist CD review

ETERNAL SILENCE - The Arsonist CD
Self Released
Genre: Death Metal
Rating: 4/5

At first I thought this was a debut from some young band dedicated to ripping your face off with their brand of good o'l American Death Metal with some flourishes of the melodic from Sweden. Then I found out they're really veterans of the Midwest extreme metal scene who have always been dedicated to ripping your face off with their brand of good o'l American Death Metal with some flourishes of the melodic from Sweden. ETERNAL SILENCE hail from Wisconsin and started out back in the late 90s. They managed to self release a full length demo in 1998 and an EP in 2002 but stopped putting anything else out afterwards. According to their website bio they've had some band member issues but never really stopped playing out and about in the Midwest. As soon as I finished reading about this band my first thought was JUNGLE ROT. They're another great Midwest death metal act who never got their due until now of course with their latest release Kill on Command. (at least in my not so humble opinion) After listening to this I think it's about time ETERNAL SILENCE gets their due.


While the big thing these days is the return to the OSDM aka: Old School Death Metal style (with no complaints from yours truly) ETERNAL SILENCE's sound is a step above the pure raw. This latest release is packed tight with that mid 1990's sound which resembles the genre's progression into a melodic structure albeit still heavy and before it got watered down by Gothenburg Inc. In the recent years you would get some people (re: snot nosed brats) who would look down their brown noses at something like this since it lacks modern standards. Thankfully I'm not one of them, because I'm older of course and can appreciate a band who doesn't follow trends or flavors of the month. ETERNAL SILENCE are the type of band who play straight up death metal for people who obviously like it. Now when I said this was packed tight I wasn't kidding since this full length is six cuts. (yeah that still is short for a full length) In other words there's no filler tracks or wasteful instro openings and outros. That would be annoying especially when the emphasis on here is face ripping but I found cuts like "Centuries of Blood" and "What Have I Become" more into head crushing.


Bandcamp: http://eternalsilence.bandcamp.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/eternalsilence

Official: http://www.eternaldeath.com/