Spanish outfit Eternal Storm are back again with the follow up to their highly rated debut album ‘Come The Tide’. Their offering of Melodic Death Metal with progressive leanings blew me away and in anticipation of this release, I revisited said album several times and found myself still easily immersed in their vast and intricate sounds. With high hopes and a sense of anticipation, I got my hands on their follow up, ‘A Giant Bound To Fall’ and I’ll be honest, it has taken me longer than I’d like to get my thoughts in order for this one.

Clocking in at 69 minutes, you can tell that the band have pushed further into their progressive leanings. On the one hand, this has allowed for more compositional brilliance and more exploration in extended sequences, multiple false finishes and more layering of lines to create more dramatic build ups, the extra 10-minutes runtime it has compared to the previous album is rather noticeable. Whilst ‘Come The Tide’ had a natural flow which swept you up and captured your attention with its expressive melodeath, ‘A Giant Bound To Fall’ doesn’t quite have that hook which catches you.

With their sound having traces of Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum in it, you can appreciate the intricacies of the arrangements. The synth elements and electronic effects tie in well with the rest of the instruments. There are the moments of explosive melodeath, but these are spread out more, giving way to lingering compositions, lengthy guitar lines and more subdued elements. The opening track “The Abyss Of Unreason” has that explosive nature in parts, but its 13-minute run time makes it a challenge to listen to if you aren’t fully focused on it.

There are moments where the explosive rawness of the debut album are dotted about still. “A Dim Illusion” has a massive groove with a real head banging pulse to it. “Lone Tree Domain” whilst nearly 10-minutes long has a great energy coursing through it and the arrangements throughout are stunning, making it one of the more notable moments and one track I kept subconsciously noticing more on listens to the record. The 1-2 of “The Sleepers” and “The Void” have a wonderful synergy and the vocal work is fantastic, layering cleans, growls and screams to great effect and building from each other in the case of “The Void” taking some of the progressions from “The Sleepers” and delivering them with more fire and aggression.

Outside of that, the album is more progressive than death. With the longer run time there is more room for extended sequences and longer looping sections but whilst I am a fan of progressive metal, I do like it to keep my attention and make me get lost in it, not losing my place trying to listen to it.

I can appreciate what Eternal Storm have tried to do with this release. I cannot fault the musicianship on display and there are parts which are stunning like those highlighted above, it is just the simple fact that the album feels too long and it lacks that booking factor which keeps you engaged throughout it. “A Giant Bound to Fall” is worth a listen, just be prepared to need a few more goes than you usually would in order to hear all that it has to offer.

(7/10 Fraggle)

https://www.facebook.com/eternalstormofficial

https://eternalstormdm.bandcamp.com/album/a-giant-bound-to-fall