ETERNITY'S END — The Fire Within (review)

ETERNITY'S END — The Fire Within album cover

Album · 2016 · Power Metal

5/5 · 2016-03-27
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Christian Münzner. Hannes Grossmann. Linus Klausenitzer. Three names that, if you're at all in the know about the current metal scene, you know are mainly associated with one particular genre: death metal (more specifically prog/tech death metal). They all have the likes of Obscura and Alkaloid on their CV's and the first two were also in Necrophagist. Eternity's End is a new band featuring this trio. It would be natural to expect this to be more of the sort of thing they are known for.

Only it's not. With a line-up completed by keyboardist Jimmy Pitts and vocalist Ian Parry Eternity's End is what happens when a bunch of guys known for death metal decide to instead make a power metal album. The end results? Well to my ears there is only one accurate description to give their debut album The Fire Within (2016): Fucking glorious.

It's probably a little unfair to be completely surprised by who is behind this release. Christian Münzner in particular has a varied string of band's behind him that aren't death metal band's including power-thrashers Paradox, his progressive metal solo project, power metallers Civilization One and Majesty (no recordings with either of them though). A couple of past bands that only reached demo level played power metal as well. Linus Klausenitzer is additionally also with the power metal act Fallacy. A major power metal release with all three of them at once though, that at least is something I wasn't expecting.

The band's sound is tinged with both progressive and neoclassical influences (and even a bit of thrash on final song The Fall of the House of Usher) but mostly this is a straight up European style power metal outing with a noticeable harder edge to it than many bands have, but that should be expected not just because of the strong death metal background that three of the five guys have but also because they're German and as we all know German power metal often goes that extra mile in heaviness. Dutch singer Ian Parry, of Consortium Project and Elegy fame, is an excellent addition to the group, bringing a powerful performance and delivering the hook laden tracks with a fiery energy that sets the sort of standard that all power metal singers should aspire to. The addition of a full time keyboardist Jimmy Pitts means that The Fire Within has some aspects that are less associated with the German power metal sound such as some symphonic bits, but that doesn't make Eternity's End's music any less furious sounding. Just give the opening title track a listen, now that's how any album should strive to assert what it's all about. And across all of the 55:51 long album they never relent. I'm not going to name drop any favourite tracks; this one demands my attention from start to finish.

The Fire Within is I think one of those albums that does everything right. Power metal fans should not be put off by the death metal background of Münzner, Grossmann and Klausenitzer; there are no needless forays into extreme metal here, just hard but classic sounding power metal. Likewise death metal fans are advised to check this out out to hear what these guys are capable of in a different context. This may even be my favourite album I've heard that any of those three have been involved in, though that may be due me being much more of a power metal guy than a death metal guy. There is something that I know The Fire Within is though: it's the best power metal album I've heard since at least 2014's excellent MindMaze release Back From the Edge. Considering that Blind Guardian released an album in 2015, that's saying a lot.