Review Summary: 2016's most painfully decent symphonic metal album.
It’s a little tricky to write a review for an album whose most overwhelming descriptor is “okay”, but that’s more or less the kicker with Aeternitas’
House of Usher. Essentially, it’s encompassed by so many decent traits and so many underwhelming ones that they effectively cancel each other out. I find it difficult to call
House of Usher bad outright, but it’s equally difficult to call it truly good. So yeah, I guess “okay” is the word for the job.
House of Usher is the most obscenely okay record from the most absurdly okay symphonic metal band this side of…well, too many to count I suppose.
I won’t lie and say I don’t have a soft spot for the occasional overblown power metal epic (especially Kamelot), but Aeternitas falls more in line with the crowd that wanted to be power metal but couldn’t match the virtuosity. Particularly this shows in the background instruments, which unfortunately includes the guitar and drum work. As far as the riffs go, it’s rare to find anything more than the most banal of chord progressions across entire songs, though there are tracks like “Fear” that feature the most banal of old school melodeath riffs. Equally uninspired is the plastic kit driving the record, basic beats under basic riffs under the real selling points for these songs. All this is forgivable really. Not every band needs flashy playing if there’s another area they’d rather emphasize. In this case it’s the symphonics and vocals that are key. For the former, they’re as classically inspired as any meathead would assume at a casual listen, complete with an all or nothing approach and obligatory gothic choirs. Which is to say that they’re pretty basic and could use a more graceful hand, but they’re also explosive enough to make
House of Usher burn quite brightly. As to the latter, Aeternitas features a classic balancing act of male vs. female vocals, each sporting a similar majestic croon within their respective gender borders. Alma Mather is the more impressive of the two, consistently empowering each section she features in, while Oliver Bandmann does a perfectly acceptable job of sitting in the shadow of his partner.
House of Usher is overlong to boot, not unsurprising considering the style, but perhaps also a byproduct of the ambitious concept story of the legendary Edgar Allen Poe story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Curiously, I don’t think it hurts the album like many concept approaches might. Scale is necessary in the grand scope of symphonic metal, and the gothic classic lends it that in spades. And while virtually every song here is characterized by similar structures, most are quite listenable. Sure, there’s that banal instrumentation I mentioned, but there are hooks aplenty and it’s bombastically entertaining enough that it’s hard to dismiss Aeternitas’ relentless efforts to charm. I find it so difficult to hate
House of Usher that I come dreadfully close to ignoring its many obvious flaws. So I guess I’ll just stick with “okay” as my choice word, uninspired as it may be. Some books are more than just the words on the page, but some aren’t. Guess which this is.
