Style: Power Metal, Progressive Metal (Clean Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Symphony X, Gamma Ray, Stratovarius, Galneryus, Scar Symmetry, Angra
Country: Germany
Release date: 25 March 2016

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I sympathize with people who don’t enjoy harsh vocals. I also feel bad for those people because they’re missing out on lots of the best music ever written. But nobody leaves the womb with an affinity for growls and screams; the style literally triggers a biological fear response, and their roughness is a difficult taste to acquire. Moreover, many a potential death metal metal listener has given up on the genre despite liking the energy of metal guitars and drums. Today I bring manna to these people: Eternity’s End, technical death metal with only clean singing.

Ok, not quite literally. But Germany’s Eternity’s End play power/prog with tech death pedigree—debut The Fire Within is comprised of musicians with experience in bands like Necrophagist, Obscura, Spawn of Possession, Equipoise, and more (Christian Münzner and Hannes Grossmann alone have featured on just about every great tech death album ever, by my estimation). And fret not, poor souls mentioned in the intro: The Fire Within certainly shares many qualities with technical death metal beyond the lineup, while also being an excellent project worth listening to of its own merit, regardless of which genre you prefer. Ian Parry’s vocals certainly won’t disappoint any power metal fans, either, but I’ll get to them later.

While not Archspire-fast, Eternity’s End are driven by Grossmann’s streamrolling blasts—his ability to play varied drum parts with groovy fills while going so rapidly is incredible. The drumming here would easily be copy-pastable into any tech death record if not for the heavy metal-inspired gallop underpinning the blast beats. The band aren’t afraid to slow down for dramatic effect, though, like the brooding epic “The Dark Tower” or the extremely catchy “White Lies.” Together with Grossmann, Linus Klausenitzer completes the low end on fretless bass, an odd instrumentation choice for power metal that further makes the record’s tech death influence apparent. His parts are mixed quietly, but his presence provides beefy heft to The Fire Within even though not always audible. 

The instrumental selling point, though, is Münzner’s guitar parts, which are as fiery as ever, with a baroque flair reminiscent of 80s shred. His solos, often trading off the spotlight with Jimmy Pitts on harpsichord-y keys, are focused on melody, but they still might catch the fretboard on fire. In classic tech death fashion, the ornamentations in the riffs are often even more technical than the solos—all over the place, Münzner runs up and down the neck in sweeping neoclassical arpeggios. Tracks often open with guitar pyrotechnics (“The Fire Within,” “Demonblade,” “Chains of the Earth”), but little pockets of crazy leads are just as likely to be found in prechoruses (“White Lies,” “The Hourglass”) or before traditional solos (“Eagle Divine,” “Demonblade”). 

Unlike tech death, Eternity’s End often back off the virtuosity, focusing on catchiness and quality songwriting. For most of the album between the flurries of neoclassical shred, Münzner plays burly riffs, while Pitts switches from harpsichord solos to atmospheric synths. The main riffs on The Fire Within share a lot in common with modern Symphony X—the emphasis on chuggier bits but with plenty of intricate guitar lines—although Münzner’s Obscura pedigree comes into play with the more interesting rhythmic parts on the album (the proggy transition into the chorus of “The Hourglass,” the riffs in both the pre- and post-chorus of “The Fall of the House of Usher”).

A power metal album is only as strong as its vocalist, though, and Ian Parry absolutely nails the choruses and verses, staying in a comfortable, though expansive, range—his rich, gritty tenor fitting in the German power metal tradition¹ of legendary singers like Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen. The uplifting lyrics on The Fire Within are infectious and make for soaring vocal lines, like the choruses of  “Eagle Divine,” “The Fire Within,” “Moonstruck,” and “The Hourglass.” How can one not feel inspired by and sing along to: “Sеize the day, feel the magic of thе moment / See yourself, in The Hourglass of life / Live your dream, do not wait until tomorrow / Hold your fire save the hero inside your soul.” It’s classic power metal cheese. Literally every song on The Fire Within is memorable and catchy, utilizing many songwriting techniques to achieve this, like the Latin chanting (very Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody-esque) and crowd-interactive chorus of “Demonblade” or the dramatic middle-section building instrumental tension in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 

While the “tech death but clean vocals” distillation of The Fire Within is a bit tongue-in-cheek, Eternity’s End is a group of tech death musicians showing passion and love toward a different style of music that undoubtedly influenced their musical tastes. Their love for power metal shines through with cute references to some of the genre’s iconic tracks scattered throughout, such as “Eagle Fly Free” (Helloween) and “Through the Fire and Flames” (Dragonforce). The Fire Within is a nice glimpse into another side of some of my favorite musicians; it also just so happens to be one of the strongest power metal debuts ever.

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Recommended tracks: The Fire Within, The Hourglass, White Lies, The Fall of the House of Usher, Chains of the Earth
You may also like: Christian Münzner, Adagio, Exmortus, Paladin, Dimhav, Michael Romeo

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Power Prog

Eternity’s End is:
– Linus Klausenitzer (fretless bass)
– Ian Parry (vocals)
– Hanness Grossmann (drums)
– Christian Münzner (guitars, choral vocals)
– Jimmy Pitts (keyboards)
With guests:
– Per Nilsson (keyboards solo track 3, keyboards, backing and choral vocals)
– Ronny Hemlin (choir)
– Daniel Palmqvist (choir)
– Lars G Persson (choir)
– Eva Svensk (choir)
– Kattis Larsson (choir)
– Rebecca Warldén (choir)
– Erik Larsson (choir)
– Caroline Nilsson (choir)
– Therése Thomsson (choir)
– Jonas Lindh (choir)
– Rikard Jansson (choir)

1. I am aware Parry is Dutch. ↩︎