Melodeath is so back, baby.  Say what you want about certain recent releases, and you already know how we each individually feel about them.  I think it’s always wonderful when bands form out of a genuine love and appreciation for a style.  To Conquer Eternal Damnation, the debut release from the Bay Area’s Darkness Everywhere, is just that: a love letter to the melodic death metal bands that shaped the members in their infancy and allowed them to achieve what they have with their careers thus far.  Oh yeah, and it also whips ass too, so there’s that to consider as well.  Good music is good music, regardless of if it sounds like something else.

Darkness Everywhere is, if you can believe it, another in a wave of pandemic projects that saw people, with nothing else to do and not many other prospects for how to spend their time, looking to their influences to spark creativity in a time when that spark was sorely missing from all of our lives.  Led by vocalist/guitarist/ex-drummer Ben Murray, the four piece comprises members of illustrious bands like A Wilhelm Scream and Crepuscle.  This is none of their first foray in the music scene, but it is a tale we have heard many times now: people need companionship, and what brings people together more than a shared interest?  And so it was that Darkness Everywhere sought to worship at the altar of old school, Gothernburg inspired melodeath, à la In Flames, Carcass, At the Gates and Dark Tranquility.  Admittedly, To Conquer Eternal Damnation listens much closer to At the Gates than In Flames (and that’s the last time I’m going to even obliquely reference Vast Reaches Unclaimed).  The riffage here is absolutely savage, and the ten tracks get in and out in under a half hour with barely a moment to catch your breath.  To call To Conquer Eternal Damnation short and sweet might be considered condescending, but it is both of those things in spades.

If the opening one-two punch of “Retaliation” into “The Architect of Misery” doesn’t sell you on where To Conquer Eternal Damnation is going, I’m not sure I can do much more for you.  Machine-gun riffing, tight palm muting and soaring melodies undercut Murray’s authentic and desperate howls, instantly transporting me back to the good old time of yore (the mid-90’s).  Again, if there is one thing that can be said about this album, it’s that it hits you hard and it hits you fast.  There is really only one brief moment of respite in the form of the acoustic interlude “A Dreaded Eclipse,” and that really only spares you from the assault for about ninety seconds.  Every facet of this album is razor sharp, especially considering how crisp and tight the guitars and the vocals are.  Take, as another example, closer “The Tragedy of Infinite Loss,” with its soaring and dexterous lead work, or “Cosmic Misfortune,” with its steadfast and sinewy drum work.  The tenure of each individual member shines through on this release, and while it is Darkness Everywhere’s debut, there’s no way you could confuse any performer on this album for an amateur.  You feel all the love and passion that comes with friends playing the music they love together.

Don’t call it a pastiche: To Conquer Eternal Damnation is an album greater than the sum of its parts.  It is righteous and anthemic, ripping and ferocious and all things great melodeath needs to be.  In fact, I think the worst thing I can say about it is that I wish there were more of it.  Ah, well.  On the next one, I suppose.

— Ian

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To Conquer Eternal Damnation is available now on Creator-Destructor Records.  For more information on Darkness Everywhere, visit their Instagram page.