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I pretty much knew what to expect from the album title with this one. From the Ashes has to be one of the most used band/album/song titles in metal, and nine times out of ten an indicator of pedestrian music. It's a shame Eternal Storm so blatantly live up to my preconceived notions, as I would have loved to have been proved wrong; I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Very much a byproduct of the metalcore/melodic death metal cross-over, you can expect all the At The Gates worshipping riffs, all the rhythmic vocals, the very nearly death metal segments, and anything else associated with the merging of styles. The album very much plays like a spot the band game too, with one track sounding like Soilwork, another sounding like The Absence, an In Flames-style acoustic intro and of course an At The Gates-style number. Performance and production is across the board atypical of the style, and for what it is, very well done.

Whilst I can't really appreciate the music all that much here, I will say that Eternal Storm know their craft very well, and carve up an all-encompassing look at the style. If you're into the popular, modern strain of melodic death metal then I can assure that Eternal Storm are a band that you're going to want to check out. If the stuff is like Kryptonite to you then you'll want to avoid this. There's no middle ground or saving grace here, definitely a love/hate type of thing. I know which category I fall into.