This album I bought a physical copy of, listened to it all the way through, and thought "this is a real piece of sh**." Now I think differently about it after hearing more and more of it. The music isn't their best written to date, but it's decent for a semi-new release. There's a lot of time signature changes and the vocals pretty much stay the same throughout the entire release. I'd have to say I was just "bored with it" the first few times around. But then it started to grow on me. I thought that it was better than average. There are some parts that are surreal and melodic, though just on maybe a few songs. They're trying a little experimentation here.

The production quality is quite sound and the music (for more or less the most part) is HEAVY. But the riffs aren't as catchy as previous albums. There's only a few that I caught that I liked but most of it was good or a little better than average. I think that they still had something good to offer here, the leads are well done, a little Morbid Angel-esque type of vibe from the earlier releases. I think this album isn't talked about much or though worthy of writing about. I beg to differ because I think the band still had something to contribute to the METAL scene. It was just a little unexpected that they took a turn into a little more (as I mentioned) experimentation.

Songs are about 3-4 minutes long and there's a lot of variety tempo-wise. Some riffs are pretty intricate and fast but they're always changing things up. It's not like the earlier days where they were pretty much wholly heavy. I'm not sure why they put in some somewhat mystical parts in their guitar sessions, but I only know that they do it just briefly. They've alternated tempos constantly but the vocals stay the same. Not sure why Erik Rutan wanted this change with the band because it was better when they were in your face death metal, not just experimenting with sounds constantly.

I'm still giving this album a "B-", I think it's generous to do, but I'm only being fair. If I thought differently, I might've changed the rating. Hate Eternal did something different here, whether you like it or hate it, they're still playing death metal as a 3-piece and have racked up some good heavy riffs. If you focus on those, then maybe you'll like the album more. That's basically like I did. But yeah, this is one that definitely has to grow on you. And focus on the leads as well because they're totally well played out. We'll see what Eric has to put out the next few years with another new release. Buy the physical copy and support metal especially the band!!

Rating: 8 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
04/18/2019 19:00