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In Aeternum are one of those Swedish bands who hovered around the Black Metal scene in the mid-nineties with the likes of Mörk Gryning and Lord Belial without ever making any sort of noticeable impact. Whilst being decent enough in their own right, they pretty much missed the boat when it came to being classed as originators, with opinions being divided between hardened Black Metallers as to the worth of their existence to this very day.

Unfortunately, the band's new EP does little to stem the flow of contempt that inexorably washes through pubs and Internet forums alike. Sure, musically it's speedy, fairly technical melodic Black Metal and it's played to an excellent degree at that. However, trying to distinguish between this short EP of four tracks and the music of any of the 1,001 other bands that tirelessly pedal this synth-less melody filled Death/Black Metal is where the band fall down, failing to stand out in an ever thickening crowd of faceless corpse-painted clone bands.

It's not all bad of course, with the final track 'Reaper in Black 2006' in particular (a re-recording of a track from the bands debut 'Forever Blasphemy') standing head and shoulders above the rest of the material on offer, reminding me of the likes of Sacramentum and Dissection at their storming best.

The other three tracks do have the odd attractive riff or arrangement, and are full of the same head-down aggression that buffets you constantly like an icy gale force wind. Nevertheless, they just miss that je ne sais quoi to really set them apart from the never ending waves of similar sounding bands to constantly spew from all corners of the world to make them essential enough to warrant regular replays. Good, but I've heard better.