War Of Ages: Eternal | Was It Necessary?
(2025 – Facedown Records)
Judging by the album cover, we could easily swear that we are looking at a classic traditional heavy metal album, but remember the saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? This could apply to “Eternal,” War Of Ages’ fifth album, which was originally released in 2010 but is now being re-released 15 years later in a re-recorded version. Yes, War Of Ages took the effort to re-record their fifth album. By the way, War Of Ages has nothing to do with traditional Metal.
At this point, we are a little saturated with the now classic Metalcore sound, that mixture of scales, chords, and melodies taken from Metal with the most acidic Hardcore beats, added to the combination of guttural and clean vocals. Well, War Of Ages goes down that path.
In any case, “Eternal” is War Of Ages’ fifth studio album, and for some unknown reason, the band decided to re-release it but with a new recording. Of course, the lineup that recorded the original album is not the same. Guitarist Branon Bernatowicz, drummer Alex Hamp, and bassist TJ Alford are no longer in the band, so we suspect that the re-recorded parts have to do with the current members of the band.
It should be noted that the vocals were not touched; they are the same as in the original version. In any case, the differences are most noticeable in the percussion, which now sounds much deeper, with a lot of bass, raising suspicions of some technological assistance since it is not indicated who sat behind the drums this time. The guitars also have a better mix, giving them a more “groovy” sound. In addition, the album was remixed and remastered, giving “Eternal” a much more contemporary sound in keeping with the times.
The 10 original tracks on the album have been retained, with nothing removed but one previously unreleased track added. In that sense, “Prevail” is possibly a discarded song from that era, or a new track that the band chose to add to the album (we lean more towards the latter option). Beyond that, we find songs like “Eternal,” featuring Sonny Sandoval (P.O.D.), and “Lack Of Clarity,” featuring Josh Gilbert (As I Lay Dying). The rest of the album includes tracks like the well-known “Collapse” and the interesting ‘Desire’ and “Failure.”
I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but the reality is that “Eternal” maintains a line that War Of Ages doesn’t stray from, except on rare occasions. One of them is “The Fallen,” where the band flirts with an approach to thrash metal. “Indecision” also has its own thing going on with a guitar solo that may even sound out of place in a genre that doesn’t usually go down those paths.
At the time this album was recorded, War Of Ages still sounded hard and rough enough to be taken seriously, and not just another band among many that sound similar to each other. “Eternal” is one of the best things they have ever done, which is why it is difficult to understand the decision to re-record what was already considered a classic of the genre, or perhaps not a classic but certainly a key album for the band. The current sound seems to be more in line with current trends, unlike the original version, which had a more “garage” and rough sound.
There were also changes to the cover and the graphic design. The cover that originally illustrated this work was of much better graphic quality than the current one. Cost reduction and simplicity above all, even in the design of the inner sleeve, which turns out to be a low-cost “digipack” edition with the lyrics and some technical information about the album printed on it in a font that is difficult to read, and not much else. Really poor for lovers of the physical format. On the other hand, the vinyl version seems to be much more promising than the one we have on compact disc, and one last point to note is that the physical editions are limited. Don’t rush too much.
This reissue of “Eternal” leaves several questions unanswered. Among them is whether it was necessary to re-record part of what had already been recorded. Perhaps the most interesting option would have been to do a reissue but with the original album and add extra material, which could have been much more significant not only for War Of Ages fans but also for those who don’t know them at all. This reissue of “Eternal” is available on both CD and vinyl at https://www.facedownrecords.com. Here are the band’s details and some of this new material so you can see what we’re talking about…
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