Ethereal Scourge - Judgement and Restoration
1997, Rowe Productions
1. Through the Waters
2. Warcry
3. Refuge
4. Estranged From the Womb
5. Shroud of Mist
6. Earthshaker
7. Hecatombs
8. Restoration
9. Quiet Surround
10. Subconcious
11. Giver of Life
Based on the strength of "Death of Hades" and "Tombthroat," both of which appeared on the Hard and Heavy From Down Under compilation, I excitedly bought Ethereal Scourge's debut disc. Originally I was bored to tears with it. I'm not sure why exactly but I think at the time the songs seemed boring to me. I recently bought it to see if it was as boring the second time around. Good news... it's not. I really dig it now. Ethereal Scourge's brand of melodic death metal is powerful. They manage to weave textures together with clean guitar tones, acoustic guitar passages, and plain ol' thrash metal riffs. They use a lot of harmonics as well which I think adds a little spice. There are even some clean vocal lines like in "Warcry." "Giver of Life" has some groove in it too and was probably the only song I liked originally. The album definitely has more meat, both musically and lyrically, than your average death metal disc. Speaking of lyrics, these are some of the most beautiful, reverent, and worshipful (worshipful? is that a word?) lyrics I've heard on any Christian disc. I've always thought that metal could be worshipful but I hadn't seen anything that comes close until listening to this on the way to work. Pretty much everyone uses the word "majestic" to describe the band's sound but I can't think of any other word that fits. I guess I just had to be a little older to appreciate what was going on here.
Useless Fact: This is the band's one and only CD. Though according to Scott Waters at Nolifetilmetal the band is still together.
No way!!! I remember these days! Ha, I also remember being easily board when I purchased this album. But at that time I was really into bands likeliving sacrifice, six feet deep, embodiment etc. It was in contrast a very monochromatic sound, but still has its place in my memory banks. Do you remember a band called mindrage?
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of Mindrage. Are they any good?
ReplyDeleteYeah actually they were really great. "Sown in weakness, Raised in power" was the album name I remember. Pretty sure one of the guys (guitarist?) Went on to join evanescence. Running across this page got me thinking about all this great music I used to listen to. Another few were The blamed and strongarm. Good times
ReplyDelete