Eternal Gray
Your Gods, My Enemies
8
This little curveball comes to us from Israel, of all places. Eternal Gray‘s second effort, Your Gods, My Enemies, leans on battle-tested and well-worn styles but combines them in an atypical way to serve up a fresh voice in extreme metal. Plotting it out on metal’s family tree, these guys would sit in the middle of death / thrash and melodeath, but that’s likely less helpful than cutting to the chase: Eternal Gray sounds like death metal crossed with Nevermore. Death metal purists will sneer at this ultra-polished, ultra-modern and largely genreless effort, but you can’t argue with results, and Eternal Gray delivers.
More than once Your Gods, My Enemies made me think back to Demonoid’s excellent death / thrash effort, Riders of the Apocalypse. Both records capitalize on full, proper death metal vocals, upon which many similarly-minded genre splitters seem to trip. But the real difference maker here is the injection of technical Nevermore-styled not-thrash / speed / power dizzying kinetic melodies and shred. Granted, these guys don’t have the power of Loomis and Company, but they’re not slouches either. I’ve seen comparisons to the latest Decapitated effort, but I’ve not spent much time with that record as of yet. But I do hear a slight Meshuggah influence in the frequent stretches of downtuned rhythmic pummeling.
The quality here is surprisingly consistent, but my one and only criticism is that the band would benefit from introducing a bit more variation into the album. It’s a minor issue, because Your Gods, My Enemies works, and metal needs bands like Eternal Gray. Talented genre purists are great, but in ample supply. Bands actually breaking boundaries into new territories are critical, but in short supply. In the middle are bands like Eternal Gray, who stand on the shoulders of giants but help create something fresh.
