Eternal Ruin
Decomposing Salvation

Not a damn soul wants the Eternal Ruin; they are hard to find for download but can be found in large amounts in the dusty warehouses of Distro (where I found them). Not a damn soul knows the Eternal Ruin; not even on relevant forums, no one knows anything about them. Of course, if no one wants them, no one knows them. But Tepes does, and he even likes them.

They are four New Yorker guys that I practically bought just because the artwork was by Jon Zig (even though it's nothing special): even I didn't know them. And yet they are already the authors of an album, the one I'm about to review, and of a split with Leukorrhea. But as we already knew, fortune doesn't always favor everyone, and Eternal Ruin has been beautifully avoided by lady luck.

I said they come from the Big Apple and those who know the genre are probably already licking their lips. New York has always been the home of a certified Brutal Death with oppressively menacing sound characteristics (Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Immolation, Skinless to name a few) that has never betrayed its fans. Although I archived the New York trend long ago, it didn't take long for me to spot the very noticeable similarities with fellow citizens Immolation, starting with the voice that is all too similar to Ross Dolan's.

As I was saying, you could say they're from New York even without knowing it, so strong are the features that connect them to this geographic area.

The sound, so dark and nihilistic, already breathes a different air compared to many other Brutal Death bands. Starting from the beautiful opener "Creature Of Habit," a CD begins with compositional standards that are decidedly high; as far as I'm concerned, I was quite impressed with the initial quartet ("", "Decomposing Salvation", "Human Toll", "..."). It's not frequent, at least now that I've been immersed in the genre for a while, that I'm struck by the first songs, and usually a record needs numerous listens before I can form a judgment. For this "Decomposing Salvation" I didn't need much time to understand that it was a really good album. The structure of the songs, while not elaborated, is the result of songwriting whose spontaneity, and in some ways, smoothness cannot be understated. The slowdowns are made as city tradition dictates and thus have an impact that is truly devastating and hardly keeps your head still. The accelerations are less refined and, although they find ample space, they are certainly not the best part of the work. The main flaw of this album is the lack of technical skill of the performers. Although there are no mistakes nor smudges of any kind, more instrumental complexity could have made this good album an authentic Must Have. While one can turn a blind eye to the Riffing (although definitely lacking surprises) because it's equally effective even without being virtuosic, it's more difficult to appreciate truly boring Drumming in which, after only a few listens, the listener starts inventing many more intriguing variations that would have made the rhythmic section infinitely more technical (all this without being drummers).

Beyond the usual double bass drum rolls and not even that fast Blast Beats, our player doesn't perform anything special and gives the impression of being unprepared. Despite this, the album deserves attention and a good judgment. I found it very courageous indeed to choose to go back to the old New York sound in a year like 2006, which offered often ridiculously overrated alternative solutions. This choice, quite humble but more than ever sensible, led them to create an album with personality and by no means obsolete yet endowed with a Retro taste, so much so that one might think they are faced with a very advanced proposal from the early or mid-nineties.

Unfortunately, as happens even to the much more famous Immolation, the choice to be faithful to a consolidated sound is not always winning and leads good-level CDs like "Decomposing Salvation" to be skipped over. Highly recommended to lovers of these sounds, to retrograde metalheads, and to those who are fed up with Brutal Death tainted with other more or less refined genres. Not recommended to virtuosos, innovators, and those who don't love real Brutal Death.