Nocturnal Eternity – “Eternity” album review

Nocturnal Eternity don’t exactly take the easy route with their debut album. ETERNITY is an eight-song concept record that runs for around 45 minutes, and instead of treating every track as a separate story, the band connects everything from beginning to end.

At the centre of the album is the Dragon, a character that goes through different stages of life: innocence, love, heartbreak, loss, darker times and eventually finding the strength to move forward again. It sounds like a big fantasy concept on paper, but the ideas behind it are actually pretty simple and human.

Musically, Nocturnal Eternity play symphonic metal with a strong cinematic side. There are plenty of orchestral parts and atmospheric moments, but there are also enough guitars and heavier sections to keep the album firmly rooted in metal.

The band doesn’t spend the whole record trying to sound huge and dramatic either. Some parts are more direct, while others slow things down and give the melodies and atmosphere more space. That change of mood works especially well because ETERNITY was clearly made to be heard as a complete album.

One song leads into the next chapter of the story, and you get more out of it when you listen from beginning to end rather than jumping around between tracks.

The production, mixed and mastered at Denevér Hangstúdió in Hungary, handles the different layers nicely. With guitars, vocals, orchestration and atmospheric elements all sharing the same space, this kind of music can easily become too busy. Here, for the most part, everything has enough room to breathe.

There are places where you can hear that this is still a band finding exactly where they want to stand within symphonic metal. That isn’t unusual for a debut, and ETERNITY feels more interesting because Nocturnal Eternity have gone for something quite ambitious instead of simply putting eight unrelated songs together.

The strongest thing about the album is probably its overall mood. The story can be followed, but you don’t need to study the concept to understand what the music is trying to express. Loss, difficult periods, getting back on your feet and starting again are things anyone can relate to, Dragon or no Dragon.

ETERNITY is a solid and carefully put-together debut from a band that clearly enjoys combining metal with storytelling and cinematic atmosphere. It may be their first album, but Nocturnal Eternity already have a good idea of the kind of world they want their music to live in.