Review Summary: Cleanly produced oldschool black metal with many tasteful touches and wonderful solos produces a very enjoyable experience.
The Eternal Suffering have gained much notoriety due to a prank (or a clever marketing move) when someone uploaded their album Miasma disguised as Dimmu Borgir's then-upcoming Abrahadabra. Most fans were positively surprised by how "Dimmu Borgir" had improved, others while realizing it was not Dimmu still acknowledged the superiority of this album. And you cannot blame them - Miasma did feel fresh to Dimmu fans, because it certainly was a quality far beyond what their Norwegian influence is capable of.
And that is one of Miasma's undisputable qualities - the ability to please both trve, kvlt BM fans and those who prefer the modern incarnations of the genre (both the sellout ones like Dimmu and CoF and the inspired ones like Old Man's Child). Trve listeners won't be put off by the album's sleek production, and the others will appreciate its heaviness and relative complexity, possibly creating a gateway to the more underground bands in the future.
The band members themselves cite both oldschool and sellout black metal bands as their influences, thus it's only logical that their sound somehow blends these two trends. In actuality, the band's sound shares nothing in common with the commercialized acts, apart from the production itself. The Eternal Suffering dishes out brutal, misanthropic and most importantly, honest music.
What sets Miasma apart from most other black metal albums are the solos delivered by the guitarist Ypsailon. Much like those of Deicide's Ralph Santolla, the solos are in a neo-classical vein and convey lots of intense emotions and awe the listener with their technicality and taste. The drumming lacks absolutely nothing, and marks Assyrion as a peer of all the established extreme metal drummers out there. Vocal-wise, Aphelian delivers shrieks comparable to Shagrath's (but much better) and absolutely stuns with his line "You've brought this upon yourselves!" which marks his first vocalization on this album - and constitutes what is one of the best beginnings a BM album has ever had. The first two tracks which make up one bigger song are simply stunning, as is the slow and brooding title track and the closer, being a cover of Dark Fortress' Iconoclasm Omega (it fits perfectly with the rest of the songs). In Silence They March contains the most beautiful lead on the album, Nocturnal Delight has some of the most creative rhythm riffs, while Jaws of Dark Demise has the evilest sound of them all.
Miasma is a very respectable effort, made even more respectable by the beautiful guitar work it contains, and should appeal to any fan of music that's dark. In case of Miasma, quality production doesn't herald mediocrity and lack of inspiration - these Greeks know what black metal is about.
