Collector's Edition in 6-panel Digipack. As a part of our Underground Series this CD is limited to 500 copies.
Eternal Valley's 6th full length album since the project's founding in 2012, and the first of them that's released on CD by Northern Silence Productions.
Atmospheric Black Metal with a touch of Doom and Ambient.
The rise of epic atmospheric black metal has been one of the more engaging developments within metal in recent years.
Led by Northern Silence Productions, whose releases are of consistently high quality, bands like Saor, Eldamar, Can Bardd and now Eternal Valley have succeeded in fusing traditional black metal with the grand atmosphere of Summoning, then sending it all into the stratosphere to create metal of unprecedented grandeur, evoking majestic worlds and powerful landscapes.
Eternal Valley, the one-man project of Jason Yorke from the US, previously produced depressive suicidal black metal, but here has spread its wings and taken off with some of the most epic and darkly majestic music I’ve heard in a long while. ‘The Falling Light’ presents the atmospheric black metal style with a penchant for slow, crushingly doomy, passages, aching piano, grand atmospherics, all the while clinging to a powerful guitar-driven sound. While it is indisputably adventurous and Tolkienesque, it is never twee or cute – this is a powerful work of art that I think will appeal to a broad cross-section of metal acolytes.
Opening track ‘The Passing of Golden Skies’ is a great place to start if you’ve never heard this band before. Beginning with the sound of falling rain and the subtle roll of thunder below an emotive and simple piano melody, the introduction develops with swelling string sounds before a programmed drum comes in. The first time I heard the drum sound I felt a little disappointed, but within seconds the whole thing launches into a glorious and epic orgasm of sound; the original piano piece carrying on to contrast the immensity of the music. A blast beat then takes over, the piano piece comes back in and the effect is complete. It then breaks down into imperious doom. It’s one of the greatest songs I’ve heard in this, or any, genre.
Other tracks, like ‘Adrift’ and ‘Remnants’ present a slower doom sound, the former containing an amazing double-tracked guitar riff that makes great use of stereo. It’s spine-chilling. ‘The Wandering Winds’ is a grand and epic masterpiece and is one of my favourite tracks from the album, with its substantial strings and moving guitar melodies. In the middle of the track some subtle guitar picking begins, building up again into a powerful crescendo. Its final movement is a melodic piano piece played repeatedly over a crushing riff and epic synths until the song's denouement.
The title track is the darkest song on the album, with a corrosive doom approach that contrasts powerfully with the more soaring moments of the other tracks. There are no twinkling pianos here, just crushing guitars that drain all hope from the listener, albeit while sustaining an energy and slow groove that never grows dull or turgid. The final track ‘The Last Sunset’ is an ambient keyboard piece that acts as the perfect coda to the power of the album proper and sends the listener into a dusky twilight and then deepest night.
Yorke’s vocals are huge – like everything on this album – with his roars and screams coming from a deep and powerful place. He occasionally inserts some cleaner guttural vocals at times, although these eschew any dainty melodies and instead power through on a single note while the music cascades around it.
I have the Northern Silence Productions limited edition digipak version, apparently limited to 500 units, and the artwork is simply magnificent. Taken from an original painting by Albert Bierstadt – whose grand landscapes also adorn the two Eldamar full-lengths - it presents a pastoral display of huge mountains and monumental clouds above a lake; trees dwarfed in the immensity of the image. The painting alone is a masterpiece and I find myself just staring at it, mesmerised. The package includes some tasteful nature shots, lyrics and the sinister photo of the artist, back turned to the camera, staring into the impenetrable wilderness.
Eternal Valley have really come out of nowhere for me, but this album has been a revelation. Varied, atmospheric, emotional, melodic and just so engaging, it’s highly recommended for fans of epic music.
Sample:
Eternal Valley - The Falling Light (Full Album)
