UMUR "Phoenix Amongst the Ashes" is the 5th full-length studio album by US death metal act Hate Eternal. The album was released in May 2011 by Metal Blade Records.

If you are familiar with the previous releases by Hate Eternal, you know what to expect when you put on "Phoenix Amongst the Ashes". Fast blasting death metal with twisted dissonant riffs played by a band that know their chops more than most. Frontman and guitarist Erik Rutan has of course reached legendary status in the death metal community because of his involvement with Morbid Angel, but while there are certainly references in the music to Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal has always been a different kind of beast and little has changed in that regard on "Phoenix Amongst the Ashes".

When you put on a Hate Eternal album ( take your pick they all have a somewhat similar sound) you can always expect to be blown back in your seat and that´s exactly what happens when listening to the opening trio of tracks before the band slow things down a bit with "Haunting Abound". It´s the first track on the album that´s actually able to captivate me a bit. The endless blasting, the one-dimensional growling style and the chaotic muffled production job don´t do the music any favours. Fortunately it helps a bit when the pace is lowered. Unfortunately most of the album is played in a furious pace with the chaotic riffs drowned in the muddy production and songwriting the features very few hooks to hold on to, making the 41:06 minutes long album seem longer than it actually is. Honestly getting through this album is somewhat of a trial for me.

Objectively seen I guess "Phoenix Amongst the Ashes" is a pretty high quality death metal album that I´m sure people into the band´s style will enjoy greatly. To my ears the band need to write some more memorable material before they´ll hook me, but I guess that statement is getting old coming from me, since I´ve said just about the same about all other album releases by the band that I´ve reviewed. So I´ll play nice and give a 3 star rating, but I must admit I´m wondering more and more why Hate Eternal are counted among the elite of US death metal.

Time Signature The eternal ruler...

Genre: brutal death-grind

Brutal, chaotic, blastbeat-ladden death-grind is what this release has to offer. And while really brutal music can be awesome, I think that there is a certain threshold in terms of how far you can take it. Hate Eternal, deliberately I am sure, take it below this threshold, which has both positive and negative results I think.

I know that blastbeats is a trademark of Hate Eternal's, so an abundance of them is to be expected. I think, however, that there are too many blasting parts on this album. There are so many that it kind of stops being brutal - I guess it is just a question over over-saturation.

But there are also a lot of interesting elements on this album. For instance, groovy riffage is combined with blastbeats, which creates an interesting tension, and dissonant chords are also extensively used, which certainly challenges the listener. To me, it seems that an essential part of the style is experimentation with how far you can take your music in the direction of chaos without it disintegrating completely - some very good examples of this are "The Art of Redemption" and the title track.

A lot of interesting stuff, to be sure, but to me the music becomes the most interesting when Hate Eternal exit blastbeat country, because then the music attains a more palpable and definable texture.

The high level of abstraction requires a high level of musicianship, and the musicians that perform on this album have that.

This is a challenging listen, but if you are into very brutal music and also like to be challenged as a listener, then I recommend that you check out this album.