Reviews of Premonitions

Gothic Beauty Magazine:

As foreshadowed by the album’s title, Premonitions is exactly that – nearly an hour’s worth of a taste of what’s in store from the mastermind behind Æthereal.  Known to rest of us as Phil, this musician fuses classical training and technique with an equally powerful background in death and progressive metal.  The result is an impressive fusion of melody and mayhem, powerful while remaining musically coherent.  By a long shot, this is one of the best debut solo releases by a metal artist I have heard todate.  Check out tracks “Premonitions”, “Suicide Hymn”, and “The Dark Apostle”; do yourself a bigger favor by buying the whole album!

Joe Headcrash:

Æthereal’s album ‘Premonitions‘ offers the sub-genre of “Progressive Swedish Metal” a carefully-chosen array of riffs and styles, ranging from 80s speed metal to 90s death metal to solid heavy metal, and more. Æthereal’s strongest point (even more than the intricate and skilled musicianship) is the presentation; angry and loud death metal is often followed by something somber and complex. Good songwriting is always the first thing I look for in a metal album, and this one has it. Does it ever.

Going deeper, once you hear how precise and rhythmic Æthereal’s riffs are, you’ll be wondering how they managed to include so many types of metal riffs and play them all perfectly.

Opeth fans will find some similarities in Æthereal but at the same time, not really. I think Æthereal are both darker and more technical, less avant-garde and more 80s metal. The best similarity between Æthereal and Opeth is the presence of loud metal and quiet passages. There is also the same musical precision. ‘Premonitions‘ is angry and loud for a progressive-metal album, and full of good riffs.

The production quality of the album strengthens my liking for it, it is not under-produced and yet not too slick. People who find a lack of aggression in most progressive-metal albums will love Æthereal’s ‘Premonitions‘.

Fan Reviews:

Gage Trader from Erebus

Love the opening to the cd…the title is really fitting, too, thanks in large part to your our use of major chords and into those eerie sounding chromatics. I was kind of expecting the “storm” to actually come, but it went into Premonitions, which starts out pretty mellow again.

I am/was surprised how good your voice is – I think it’s really a strength throughout the album. Your vocal variations are really good, too. Your death vocals are pretty unique- they don’t sound like anyone else I can really think of.

The drums are interesting to me….I hear a lot of the ride cymbal (I think that’s the one), and it’s very characteristic of your songs. I’m not a drummer, and I don’t really listen to a lot of drums, but I can’t recall ever hearing a ride cymbal so much on an album. In general, the drumming never gets too complicated, but I think that’s to be expected since you’re not a drummer (I don’t think anyway). If there’s one area of the music that I feel could be stronger, it’s the drum parts.

The songwriting is really impressive. I think you have great use of melody and progression. You utilize many different chord forms, keys, and modes. I like the continuity of your songs for the most part. I think you do a good job of building parts up and then resolving them. The only complaint I have here is the same one I have with Opeth a lot of the time – some of the “transitions” are too abrupt for my taste. I’m really big on flow, which you do well most of the time.

The album does a good job of keeping the songs varied enough (I mean heavy vs. light) to retain interest. I think you could also benefit from adding more nuances within each part – for example, let’s look at 1:37 in Haunted by Visions: you play this part (let’s call it part A) 4 times, then you go into the next part (part B) 2 times, come back to part A 4 more times, followed by 2 of part B – each time the riffs are played exactly the same.

Now I’m not saying you should be soloing over this or anything, but I think doing something like varying the last beat of the parts each time helps keep the parts fresh, especially when you’ve got an 8 minute song and the parts are heard throughout the song. For a (cheesy) example, when I listen to Crazy Train, the part played during the main verse in that song always has a different “ending” to it, even though the underlying chords are the same.

There is a good variation in the guitars. Clean, distorted, “classical” – they’re all there, and all used well.

I’m sorry I don’t listen to lyrics at all. I know you probably want some input on those, too, but I’m not going to be the one for that…sorry!

Favorite song: Mendicant – That opening riff (repeated throughout the song) is really, really cool. The song is the most cohesive and flowing of all of them imo. Love the outtro, too.

Overall: Again, I am not a huge fan of this genre, so there are probably many things in my review that don’t make sense if you actually know a lot about prog death metal. I found this album more enjoyable than either of the last three Opeth releases. As a score, I’d give it an 8/10. I think you have a lot of talent, and I really admire your ability to put this whole thing together. The production is pretty impressive too, considering you did it yourself. I look forward to hearing more from Æthereal!

When I first started listening to this album, the acoustic guitar hit me. I was expecting something else! I was expecting headbangingly awesome metal. It then sucked me in. I found myself not caring if it was acoustic with clean vocals, it was awesome! Then the distortion and growled vocals hit me and I was like, “what the hell hit me?”

This album is a masterpiece. It’s hard to believe that one person is behind this. Wisconsin native Phil, who now lives in Sweden, recorded this album all by himself. He wrote everything. The songwriting is impeccable. It goes from foreboding acoustic music to crushing and melodic metal without breaks. Phil also does really good clean vocals and can interchange them with the harsh vocals without to much stress.

For fans of Opeth and any dark, melodic progressive metal bands. — Andy