My introduction to Hate Eternal was in 1997 while working on the, then, official website for Cannibal Corpse and found out about Alex Webster’s "new" side project with then-Morbid Angel guitarist Erik Rutan, and promptly got my hands on the Hate Eternal/Alas split promo and was admittedly impressed.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed to hear about the departure of Alex Webster from the group, but was excited to hear that Doug Cerrito would be playing on the group’s debut full length, Conquering The Throne, and was even more impressed after hearing it. Once Cerrito completed his one-off work with Rutan, a lot of the excitement I had about the band quickly turned to indifference once I heard the group’s sophomore effort King Of All Kings. The songs no longer packed the punch they did on the first effort, and a lot of the catchiness was gone, or such was my initial impression and I never gave the disc a second listen.

The first time I listened to the group’s latest full length offering, I, Monarch, my initial reaction was that the album was incredibly boring and not even worthy of a second listen, however, since then I’ve given the album a few more listens and I was surprised to find my opinion of the album changed drastically as I gave the disc more listens, but still isn’t that favorable.

The skill of musicianship put on display on this album is impressive, as Rutan shreds his way through all 10 tracks with the precision of a surgeon, Derek Roddy bashes away like a man possessed and Randy Piro lays down solid steady bass lines. There is no doubting the abilities of the musicians in Hate Eternal, however, while the members are great at playing their instruments, the song writing is very hit and miss throughout the 43 minute effort.

The moments without vocals on this album are amazing; the music flows well, the song writing is incredible and you can do little more than sit back in awe and enjoy the music. Unfortunately, these moments are generally the least "brutal" moments in the music, and the heavier parts are always the areas which include the vocals. These segments, which are basically the "bread and butter" of any group, are terrible. In fact, they’re downright boring. The problem is all of the areas in the songs that include vocals basically fit into the same boring formula; dual layered vocals, repetitive riffs and relentless triggered-to-shit blasting all layered on top of one another so it just comes across as a single wall of sound. It’s heavy; it’s fast and, honestly, just way too much to be able to focus on anything. It doesn’t make me want to bang my head, it doesn’t make me want to thrash about, it just makes me bored until the next non-vocal segment comes up, then I can just sit back and let it all sink in.

On the tracks where there are vocals and everything isn’t blended together, it just lacks that "something" to really put it over the top. There are no catchy hooks at all in the balls-out brutal segments, unlike bands like Suffocation, Deeds Of Flesh, Wormed, Immolation and Necrophagist who can combine crippling heaviness with insane technicality and still make the music intense and interesting and easy to get into and go apeshit to.

I don’t think it helps that Rutan doesn’t have much vocal range and everything just comes across in basically the same deep growl with little variation, apart from the occasional high pitched rasp in the background, which I assume is Randy Piro.

A lot of people will praise this album as the disc of the year; I just don’t see it that way at all. My blunt opinion of I, Monarch is; as an instrumental effort its brilliant, but as a death metal album it’s average at best. Even the artwork is pretty lame; a man with antlers growing out his head attached, back-to-back, with a chick with a decaying flesh skull. Ooookay…

Hate Eternal consider themselves the new Kings of death metal, and, actually, they are a lot like today’s modern monarchy; the Kings and Queens have no power and are basically just figureheads and national symbols, without really doing anything other than waving to crowds and cutting ribbons, shaking hands and kissing babies… though you may want to give Rutan some tictacs before letting him pucker up. Those are some nasty green snaggleteeth.

Written By: Teufel