(We present DGR‘s review of the debut album by Oakland CA-based Darkness Everywhere, which was released in May by Creator-Destructor Records. The fantastic cover art is by Adam Burke.)
It’s weird to think about how wildly melodeath-ascendant the past few years have been. It’s strange when you’re within the bubble of a nostalgia cycle and are fully aware of it, as opposed to recognizing it from the outside and approaching it more from the cultural anthropology side of things.
There are even projects dedicated to exploring different eras, which is not something you would normally ascribe to a style that saw such a glut of artists in the late ’90s and early ’00s that it almost accidentally codified into the blueprint that was then widely followed to the point of mundanity.
Yet there are projects dedicated to both the retro and modern aspects, and those who split the difference between the two. In the case of musician Ben Murray and his latest exploration of the style in Darkness Everywhere, it’s one made with a ton of influence from that late ’90s to early ’00s period in which melodeath became its own thing and the words for the genre were no longer existing as just an abbreviation of a way to describe a less sewage-obsessed form of death metal.
You could argue that a handful of projects that Ben has been involved in over the years, as well as the bands shared on the day-to-day roster of Creator-Destructor Records, were always going to lead to this point, but his last few releases have had him step out from behind the drumkit and on to the guitar and vocals front, and in doing so the quest for a proper one-two riff and solid gallop became ever more consuming.
Thus, we have Darkness Everywhere and their album To Conquer Eternal Damnation, an attempt so mighty at making a proper melodeath album that it would feel criminal to call it anything but. To Conquer Eternal Damnation is part influence worship, part blueprint-following, and fully dedicated in its quest to sound like the genre did post the landmark Slaughter Of The Soul.
To Conquer Eternal Damnation is zero bullshit, wastes none of your time, and has no interest in longer and more grandiose songs. Darkness Everywhere move at a fast clip and barely eke past the three-minute mark three times on the album. The rest of the time, the songs are mid-two minutes and punchier than hell.
It cannot be overstated just how appreciated the suddenness with which Darkness Everywhere will end a song on To Conquer Eternal Damnation is. The band barrels toward a natural endpoint within each track and when that time hits, they often just cut it off. No outro, few fade-outs, just a sudden cut and it’s on to the next wildfire that the band are sparking elsewhere. Like an interviewee refusing to talk and having nothing to say anyway, Darkness Everywhere know when they are done with a particular song and kill it with the efficiency of a guillotine.
To Conquer Eternal Damnation has a sort of propulsive kinetic energy to it because of that, a bit of light anxiety to an otherwise circle-pit-heavy style of album. Every song – save for the obligatory acoustic bit in the middle to prove that we are actual musicians – is like a communal stew of hefty riffs and quick-as-lightning drumming. Nothing is too overcomplicated and although a few of the Darkness Everywhere crew have spent time in more technically oriented groups, everything is done in service of a driving guitar section on this release.
It’s also clear that for as razor-sharp as a good grouping of the songs are — “Retaliation”, “Cosmic Misfortune”, “Starving Eyes”, and “The Final Descent” all have some serious bite to them — Darkness Everywhere are having fun with some of the influence chasing.
Closer “The Tragedy Of Infinite Loss” has fun pulling from the Judas Priest-esque guitar lead over hefty gallop that has long been Amon Amarth‘s territory for its introductory segment, and “In Blood They Will Drown” is one of a handful of times throughout this album in which the group’s At The Gates influence is made most clear.
“A Dreaded Eclipse” pulls from the In Flames playbook of having an acoustic number dead-center of the disc in order to break up groupings of songs. “The Architect Of Misery” even invites fellow Light This City conspirator Laura Nichols to join in for dual vocalist shenanigans for two or so minutes, while also serving as a good reminder of how underrated that group’s 2018 release Terminal Bloom was.
The Olympics have slowly been taking up more and more mental real estate recently. It’s not that I truly care, but it does mean that there will be something on in the breakroom for everyone’s favorite graveyard shift employee to watch, other than a seemingly endless run of syndicated “comedy” tv shows so unfunny that it makes one wonder if they’re being punished by god for the mere act of just existing.
They had archery trials on not too long ago and one of the things that stuck out was how staid and calm it was. There’re people that are so practiced at shooting straight and true that it becomes a mundane act, something as simple as breathing. The commentary remains hushed and conversational and no one is absolutely losing their mind any time someone lands one right in the center. The act itself is incredible (I’d probably send one so errant that it would circle the globe and catch me in the back of the neck), yet it’s so practiced that people treat it as if it was normal.
And it’s also the only way I could think of Darkness Everywhere after a certain amount of time. To Conquer Eternal Damnation is a hell of a melodeath album and one that lends itself easily to multiple listens. It is punchy and fast and with mean enough hooks to be a pirate-themed serial killer should the desire ever spring forth. Yet Darkness Everywhere are shooting so straight and true on To Conquer Eternal Damnation that it’s hard to think of the band as just a ‘new’ project.
It’s like they’ve always been with us, like this is an album from a group that is three or four releases deep, already having gone through the forging and ‘finding themselves musically’ period that so many of us are used to following. Darkness Everywhere come off like practiced atheletes on To Conquer Eternal Damnation, like professionals deep into their years with their craft, and To Conquer Eternal Damnation is the sort of album a group like that would make.
All roads did eventually seem like they were going to lead to this crew making an album like this, but they’ve nailed it so perfectly that while it isn’t an exacting bullseye, it’s still close enough that it could deserve a few hushed commentators talking over its actions as if they’re terrified to disturb the action from fifty feet away.
https://darknesseverywhere.bandcamp.com/album/to-conquer-eternal-damnation
https://www.facebook.com/DarknessEverywhereMelodicDeath/