For those of you, like us, who haven’t previously encountered the one-man Armenian project Eternally Scarred, we’ve got what we think will be a big and welcome surprise for you today. The surprise comes in the form of two songs from Eternally Scarred‘s new album Echoes From Beneath, one that previously surfaced and one that we’re premiering today.
The songs are surprising in a couple of respects. The first is that the band has branched out from the stylistic markers of its debut album …Of Wisdom, which led Metal-Archives to label the music Melodic Death/Doom Metal. Those labeled ingredients are still a part of Echoes From Beneath, but there’s now even more going on in the songs, and the ways in which they take new forks in the path are thrilling (and kind of head-spinning).
The other surprise, for those of us who are encountering Eternally Scarred for the first time, is just how “muscular” and hard-hitting the songs are, how well-constructed and “catchy” they are, and how frighteningly intense the vocals become. Make no mistake, these are often grim and moody beasts, and capable of harrowing your souls, but they’ll get your pulse pounding too.
Today’s song premiere is “Stone Cold Blood“. The slow distorted chords that open the track ring like a twisted funeral bell, immediately casting a pall of pain and gloom on the listener’s mind. Those chords morph into a harrowing harmony, backed by a formidable rhythmic punch and a guitar solo that swirls upward to bold, bright heights.
But the song is haunting and disconcerting, too. Eerie, isolated guitar reverberations and frightening guttural whispers surface and re-surface to chill the skin, trading places with those those ominous and imperious chords, and harrowing roars and terrifying screams make a big impact. A different kind of guitar melody also rings, one that hypnotically ripples, but the humongous crashing guitars return again.
Yet there’s still one more facet to this dynamic piece. The pacing launches into a rocking groove, providing the momentum for a magnetic riff that seems to occupy an intersection of Southern rock, stoner blues, and psychedelia. The vocals there are wild and gritty, full of fire an fury. The soloing soars as well, pushing the song’s crescendo to a glorious zenith — though bleak moods return again before the end, thanks to a riff that will keep heads moving.
The other song we urge you to hear is the previously released “Brothers In Arms“. It scars and batters, jolts and jukes, chimes in unearthly splendor, and howls like a wounded beast.
The song will kick-start your heart, but like the song we’re premiering today, it’s wonderfully multi-faceted, dynamic in its pacing, and draws on stylistic influences that go well beyond death and doom. The vocals are again astonishingly intense, and like today’s song premiere, it’s highly infectious as well as emotionally powerful.
Eternally Scarred is the work of solo artist Artak Karapetyan. Compared to its full-length predecessor, the themes of the new album focuses on less interconnected, and less personal stories, and are instead described as “an amalgamation of such topics as insanity, nightmares, powerlessness, corruption, loss, coping with the aforementioned topics, or being overcome by them”.
The album is almost an hour long, and it will be co-released on September 20th by Satanath Records and More Hate Productions. It features cover art by Vladimir Prokofiev from Paint-It-Black Design, and layout by Aleksey Satanath.
PRE-ORDER:
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat354-eternally-scarred-echoes-from-beneath-2022
http://morehate.com/
https://morehate.bandcamp.com/
ETERNALLY SCARRED:
http://eternallyscarred.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/eternallyscarredmetal