Artist: Eterna Essentia
Album: Revitalisation of the Spiral Path
Label: Self-released
Release date: January 2025
Out of all the releases I've reviewed, the ones that I've always looked forward to the most have been side projects of established artists, for the simple reason that I'm incurably curious as to what makes a musician think "my project needs a side project". There has to be a point at which an artist realises that what is being birthed in their mind is sufficiently different either in cause or in consequence that it merits its own name rather than being just another chapter of the main storyline. Such is the case with Eterna Essentia, a newly spawned, but long gestated offshoot created by members of Leidungr. Whereas the main band, as its name implies, is known for its ritualistic approach to dark ambient rooted in Viking lore, Eterna Essentia is a different beast altogether.
I'll be honest - I miss the days when the predominant strain of dark ambient was just that: darkness and ambience. No shrill noises, no rhythmic background, no cinematic tinge, just a droning stream of subtle sonic stimuli that the listener tunes into and drifts away. That is exactly what Eterna Essentia provides; Revitalisation of the Spiral Path is a wonderful exercise in immersion more than anything. Once the Lustmordesque thump opens the album, the four tracks, spread over 53 minutes, are variations of more or less the same drone resonating in the depth of the listener's mind, bending and shifting just enough to keep the interest and change the soundscape, but not enough to disturb the flow of consciousness. The simplistic cover art is strongly suggestive of the nature of the music itself - while the motive seems familiar and rooted in an everyday sight, a more careful look reveals a lot of nuances that do not fully belong to the here and now. There's a strong sense of otherness here, of being removed from the present moment and zoomed out to a greater scale in both time and space. The music is packed with interesting elements, such as metallic vibrations, deep bass drones, pulsing echoes, ethereal voices and foggy dissonance, but these are so masterfully blended in that it takes real mental effort to discern them, because the atmosphere is so enveloping that your mind simply chooses to focus on the soundscape itself rather than the individual elements that comprise it. Likewise, there is no real point to trying to determine how the tracks relate to each other or - heavens forbid - which one is the best; these are four angles into the same vision, and focusing on any one over the other would inevitably detract from the value of the whole. Perhaps that's why the artists behind Eterna Essentia decided to name the tracks in simple order as well.
Revitalisation of the Spiral Path is a masterful execution of a somewhat forgotten strain of dark ambient, and one that seems more and more rewarding on every repeated listen. It's a lush, stimulating, highly introspective journey, and one that sets a very high bar for the rest of 2025. For anyone that's in love with the early-2000s Scandinavian school, such as myself, suffice it to say that this album could easily be placed in the pantheon of early Cyclic Law releases, for instance. In short, Revitalisation of the Spiral Path puts the ambient back into dark ambient, and I couldn't be more excited about it.
Rating: 10/10
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