Time Signature
The eternal ruler...
Genre: brutal death-grind
Brutal, chaotic, blastbeat-ladden death-grind is what this release has to offer. And while really brutal music can be awesome, I think that there is a certain threshold in terms of how far you can take it. Hate Eternal, deliberately I am sure, take it below this threshold, which has both positive and negative results I think.
I know that blastbeats is a trademark of Hate Eternal's, so an abundance of them is to be expected. I think, however, that there are too many blasting parts on this album. There are so many that it kind of stops being brutal - I guess it is just a question over over-saturation.
But there are also a lot of interesting elements on this album. For instance, groovy riffage is combined with blastbeats, which creates an interesting tension, and dissonant chords are also extensively used, which certainly challenges the listener. To me, it seems that an essential part of the style is experimentation with how far you can take your music in the direction of chaos without it disintegrating completely - some very good examples of this are "The Art of Redemption" and the title track.
A lot of interesting stuff, to be sure, but to me the music becomes the most interesting when Hate Eternal exit blastbeat country, because then the music attains a more palpable and definable texture.
The high level of abstraction requires a high level of musicianship, and the musicians that perform on this album have that.
This is a challenging listen, but if you are into very brutal music and also like to be challenged as a listener, then I recommend that you check out this album.