UMUR
"The Supreme Force of Eternity" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Runemagick. The album was released through Century Media Records in September 1998. Runemagick formed in 1990 under the Desiderius monicker, but soon changed their name to Runemagic and recorded several demos under that monicker before disbanding in 1993. After reuniting in 1997 they finally changed their name to the current one. So while the band was part of the early 90s Swedish death metal scene, they were a little late to the game in terms of releasing their debut album.
The material on "The Supreme Force of Eternity" is early 90s influenced death metal with doom/death metal influenced sections too. The band also display melodic death metal sensibilities (helped along by lead guitar melodies and the occasional use of keyboards), although this is not as such melodic death metal. The vocals are throaty growling. Although this is predominantly old school influenced death metal, "The Supreme Force of Eternity" is not a prime example of Swedish death metal from the 90s. Runemagick have another thing going for them, and while I wouldn´t exactly call their music original or unique, it has something different that sets it apart from artists like Entombed, Grave, and Dismember.
"The Supreme Force of Eternity" features a decent sounding production job, but it´s not the most powerful sounding nor the most interesting death metal sound production. The band are relatively well playing, although the tempo changes and the drum transitions sometimes sound a little awkward (the band both blast away, play mid-paced, and very slow doom/death). Upon conclusion "The Supreme Force of Eternity" is a decent quality debut album by Runemagick, but being this late to the game and not producing an album of the highest quality will almost certainly prevent you from reaching much more than a cult following, which is exactly what happened to Runemagick. When that is said "The Supreme Force of Eternity" is still a great quality death metal release and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is warranted.
