Before you he stands, a prophet, gazing at the world and thinks: "where are we going from here? Will it be towards vanquish or prosperity"? Assumingly that it could have been true, the decision to live forever after or die in misery and anguish, to which of the two fates the world deserves. Again I tried to decrypt an interesting concept planted deep within the guts of an extreme type of Metal music, yet as always when approaching an enigma, uncertainty lifts its shiny head, laughing like a mad clown. There I found the young Australian Death Metal band, ETERNAL REST, feeding away from two worlds of extreme Metal music, sucking dry the past and present, forging their own small legacy of technical abuse. Caressing a few Middle Eastern scales, mainly Arabian signatures, to their advantage, along with high standard playing capabilities, ETERNAL REST run riot into the blazing sun with vaporous engines of early MORBID ANGEL, DEICIDE, IMMOLATION and SUFFOCATION while also fathoming similar to the new age Death Metal onslaughts such as PSYCROPTIC. "Prophetic" is their firstborn, via Deepsend Records, opening a world of possibilities to both old and new school fans to pander.

I believe that "Prophetic" is probably the first album in quite a while that is pure Death Metal without devoid of Thrash and other various elements that most Death Metal blend within their musical lines. Enclosed in "Prophetic" is the mere viciousness of the old scene, almost diabolical as the first devilish preachers of the early 90s, embracing haunting lead guitar licks, evilly written shrieking soloing passages, somewhat sorrowful melodic tremolo picking, both guttural and high end vocal alterations and whirlwind rhythm guitar riffery along with cascading drumming drenched in chaotic speed. Yet as a supplementary taste, ETERNAL REST issued their unholy dexterous playing, propitiating their songs with miscellaneous arrangements including mayhemic drumming and gruesome guitaring, which on several occasions seemed to fit quite perfectly to the songs. Generally I think that this technical assimilation to old school straightforwardness in Death Metal is worthwhile effort. Interesting layouts as the multifaceted "Last Gate", classy "Onset of Destruction" and the semi MORBID ANGEL vehemence with a few acoustic shards of "Prophetic" are the proof to that. Nonetheless, I think that ETERNAL REST's material was at times a bit drone alongside lead guitar patterns that seemed to reprise every now and then, which went being boring after a short time like on "Remnants" or the tiresome debauched lead fretwork on "Manifestation" and "Infernal Region" that always came back to daunt. I didn't mind with the frequent stops until the next ravage attacking rollercoaster, but in time, it got a bit old, didn't want another overdose of that.

Probably ETERNAL REST's worst enemy on "Prophetic" is losing sight of whether their musical manipulations worked out for them or not. In overall, they are on the right course for an intriguing sequel to this release, they have a melodic advantage over other bands that keep up hammering with the technical prowess without attributing a few harmonic monikers to their songs, and that is with being overly soulless about it. I liked the diversity within their Death Metal formula, and I can acclaim this number as a good starting point. So said the prophet...