UMUR "Eternal" is the 4th full-length studio album by US death metal act Malevolent Creation. The album was released through Pavement Music in May 1995. After making waves on the US death metal scene with "The Ten Commandments (1991)" and "Retribution (1992)", the band hit rock bottom with "Stillborn (1993)", which wasn´t popular neither among critics nor among most fans. The decline in success got Malevolent Creation fired from Roadrunner Records, and in the same unfortunate breath lead vocalist Brett Hoffmann and drummer Alex Marquez left the group. On "Eternal", Marquez is replaced by Dave Culross (Suffocation, Pyrexia) while bassist Jason Blachowicz takes over the vocal duties from Hoffmann, making Malevolent Creation a four-piece for the first time.

The music on the album is slightly different from the brutal thrash tinged death metal of the three preceeding releases, as there is a greater emphasis on death metal brutality on "Eternal". Jason Blachowicz is a shouting type growling vocalist and he sounds quite different from Brett Hoffmann, which is also a thing that makes "Eternal" stand out from the earlier releases by the band. I enjoy the fact that Blachowicz growling delivery is intelligible and very powerful too. The album is full of well executed heavy riffing but also some really fast blasting sections. Dave Culross masterfully leads the band through the latter type sections. Like most of the band´s albums the tracks take a while to tell apart but upon repeated listens, vocal hooklines and recognisable riffs begin to appear. Don´t expect melody in any shape or form though. That´s not what Malevolent Creation are about.

"Eternal" is the kind of album where you can hear that the band have something to prove. There´s a rarely found intensity in the delivery, that you only hear on albums, where the artist are in a "grasping the last straw/back against the wall" situation. There´s just no way in hell, Malevolent Creation were going to be remembered for "Stillborn (1993)", which they weren´t completely satisfied with themselves and they´ve made damn sure that "Eternal" packs so much punch that "Stillborn (1993)" is more or less forgotten the minute you put "Eternal" on. Now I´m actually one of those rare few who found "Stillborn (1993)" pretty enjoyable, but listening to "Eternal", I have to admit, that "Stillborn (1993)" definitely lacked the passion of the best output by the band. "Eternal" fully deserves a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating.