Malevolent Creation
Eternal
[Pavement]


This is fucking delicious. Once upon a time, I read a review of this record in The Grimoire of Exalted Deeds. Bill's description of this album made it seem quite enticing, so I took a chance and bought my first Malevolent Creation CD. I will never forget it, either. The minute I got home, I played it and when it reached track six, "Enslaved", I realized I'd heard this very song on the local college metal radio show. I was shocked. Since then it's been my favorite song from the album--indeed, one of the best death metal songs ever.

Having never heard any Malevolent Creation prior to 'Eternal', it quickly became my favorite (and still is, after hearing all but two of their records). I only found out a year after acquiring this that drum god Dave Culross played on this one. His drumming on 'Eternal' is godly. There are tons of catchy, fast, brutal riffs, loads of blast, killer deathly groove the way only Malevolent can do it. Not to forget Jason's powerful mid-range vocals. I've found, through personal experience, that those are the most tolling vocals to use because they take so much force. Thus I consider them damn brutal. To those who say this album is a "riff salad", you are posers.

The best tracks on this one are "Enslaved", a mid-paced in-your-face number, "Alliance or War", which contains one of the best riffs from the entire album, "Tasteful Agony", which has a riff that's so good I can taste it and it tastes like sweet candy, and "Infernal Desire" with it's insane opening blast and pummeling double-bass. Some would say that "They Breed" is the band's strongest material on this album, but I disagree. I found that song to be rather so-so. "To Kill" has some cool riffs, but the blown speaker vox (a style that annoys me greatly) make it a little unpleasant to listen to.

I'm not a stickler for production, but one of the coolest aspects of the sound on 'Eternal' is the snare drum. It can be heard perfectly during the blast just as normally as it can during the normal parts. That doesn't seem to happen much on albums with blast. I could listen to this a million times. Thus, I deem 'Eternal' Malevolent Creation's best release ever.


© 1999 goden