Review by Sonny for Aeternus - ...And So the Night Became (1998)

As I mentioned previously, I have only had a brief, but exceedingly positive, association with Aeternus. Their 1995 "Dark Sorcery" EP is one of my favourite black metal EPs and their 1997 debut album "Beyond the Wandering Moon" isn't bad either, so I went into this in a positive frame of mind. Luckily, this uncharacteristically positive attitude wasn't misplaced and this is a nice slab of medium-paced, melodic, norwegian black metal that was very easy to get into with Immortal being an obvious touchstone for me.

A striking atmosphere is set with the introduction to the epic opener, "There's No Wine Like the Bloods Crimson" which starts off with a warrior's raging and a brief snatch of liturgical singing before giving way to a martial drum beat which sets the conflict-riven battlefield scene where most of the album's events take place. The theme here is the horrors and glories of war, particularly toe-to-toe, whites-of-their-eyes, blood and guts medieval warfare. The riffs are fairly melodic and memorable enough to catch yourself humming along occasionally. The odd riff also has a folk metal component to it, with second track "As I March" containing a prime example. The sound is pretty thick, not the lo-fi, washed out and icy thin sound often associated with nineties black metal, but with a noticeable death metal influence which is well-suited to the blood-riven theme of the album. I always love a good drum track and Vrolok's percussive contribution is well-handled here. The track "Blodsverging", where he really gets to let rip, is a great example. I am not clued in enough to know how technically good Vrolok is, but the drums sound absolutely brilliant and I love what he was doing with the aggressive, but well-controlled, battering that he is visiting upon his kit. There is some fairly sparse utilisation of keyboards, but they are subtly handled and never smother the riffs, merely adding a thin atmospheric layer to proceedings.

I am not going to claim that "...And So the Night Became" is a top-drawer norwegian black metal classic or anything, but it is very good and I found it exceedingly easy to get into with a musical consistency and atmospheric integrity that showcases the songwriting skills of all involved. Aeternus may not get a huge amount of credit or acknowlegement in the black metal world, but here they reveal themselves to be a very accomplished black metal act that almost certainly deserve more plaudits than they receive. There is some really good stuff on here and this is definitely an album I will return to in the future.