Alas, here we have another death metal guitarist setting up a side project to extend his repertoire, when he should have stuck to his day job. And being guitarist for Hate Eternal, after spending considerable time with Morbid Angel, is pretty cool as far as day jobs go.

Just as every growling death metal bloke sounds indistinguishable from the rest, tenor Martina Astner sounds pretty much exactly the same as the other women alternating between soft singing and bombastic opera wails in gothic metal bands around the world, but her background with Sweden's opera metal godfathers Therion at least proves she's one of the more competent, only becoming too piercing and deplorable in select songs. One problem that she isn't necessarily accountable for are the absolutely abominable lyrics, littered with the worst, most basic and desperate rhymes and the most simplistic emotional subject matter extrapolated from each song title ("Come enter my realm of emotion ... Come swim in my rumbling ocean").

Disappointingly, and surprisingly considering the album's apparent "progressive" intentions, the majority of these songs sound more or less the same, with only a couple of distinguishing touches such as a change in vocal style or the use of double bass drumming to set them apart. None stand out as particularly great, with only tracks four, six and seven earning a place very slight above average. Among the least successful tracks are those that make the castrated death metal sound all too obvious ('Loss of a Life,' 'Rejection of What You Perceive'), with Rutan's melodeath riffs and Davis' restrained drums struggling to hold themselves back from the sort of thrashing, hammering sounds they are more accustomed to producing, and sounding half-hearted as a result in this unanimously mid-tempo recording.

For the most part, the instruments work well together and never try to show off at the expense of the music, something that's always a danger with a side-project like this, but they also fail to come up with anything truly original that hasn't been done before, and would go on to be reproduced many times after. Keyboards are used sparingly to add a nice, more epic atmosphere that works most effectively in 'Quest for Serenity,' and Rutan's wealth of experience lets him know when to quieten down and let the drums, bass guitar and vocals carry verses along, making his eventual return with energetic riffs and solos all the more effective. It's still clear however that he's used to the style of death metal, where deliberately slowing the pace can make a chorus all the more hard-hitting and enjoyable, but applying such techniques here in songs like 'The Enchanted' really doesn't have the same effect, and only makes the song seem more dull and lethargic. Davis' drums come across the same problem as they attempt to introduce faster and more dynamic elements that only become lost behind the mediocre, middling pace.