There are bands that simply play classic metal, and then there are bands that take the spirit of the genre and build an entire world around it. Since forming in Germany in 2018, The Night Eternal have been steadily developing their own identity within melodic metal, drawing from the atmosphere, guitar-driven power, and adventurous spirit of the ‘70s and ‘80s while putting their own stamp on the formula.
After releasing Moonlit Cross in 2021 and Fatale in 2023, the band have continued to make their presence known on stages alongside Blind Guardian, Michael Schenker Group, Angel Witch, and Lucifer, as well as at major festivals including Wacken, Summer Breeze, Hellfest, and Houston’s Hell’s Heroes Festival.
With Cold Velvet, their third studio album and first release through Metal Blade Records, The Night Eternal take that momentum and push it into something bigger. The album feels like stepping into a dark fantasy world where every riff sets the scene, every drumbeat moves the story forward, and Ricardo Baum’s vocals guide you through whatever strange landscape lies ahead.
It’s dramatic, heavy, adventurous, and unapologetically metal, and from the opening moments, The Night Eternal make it clear that they aren’t here to simply revisit the past. They’re here to make it their own.
Right from the get-go, The Night Eternal demonstrate how they combine epic fantasy storytelling with a mesmerising sonic landscape of blaring guitars, enthralling vocals, and galloping drums that sound like machine-gun fire. Those are all the ingredients needed to make Cold Velvet work. No bullshit, this is a killer album.
As soon as ‘Where This World Ends’ explodes, Ricardo Baum’s vocals stand across the mountains like Conan the Barbarian surveying the landscape and deciding where his next adventure will take him. It becomes a fierce introduction to this new musical chapter: standing alone, fighting for dear life, and never knowing where the next road will lead.
The back-and-forth guitar textures between Richter and Kaseberg channel the spirit of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Within Temptation, and Metallica, all rolled into one delicious, hot-and-spicy wasabi burger that is ready to be served. But wait, it gets even hotter!
‘The Veins of Time’, ‘When the Last Candle Dies’, and ‘Eurydice (Don’t Look Back)’ take you straight into the comic-book adventures of Taarna from the pages of Heavy Metal. It feels as though she is embarking on her final mission, this time for good, with dramatic and thunderous arrangements that leave you wondering what will happen to the mute warrior. Meanwhile, the brief sliding, desert-country-esque Ry Cooder approach on ‘Caught in a Spell’ caught me completely off guard.
You can’t just be a metal band 24/7. Sometimes, you want to do something different. Here, The Night Eternal become a metallic version of Simple Minds, almost as if they are paying homage to the new wave scene while adding their own flavour as the stars go out. You feel as if something is crawling up behind you in the middle of a heavy dust storm, as Ricardo returns to Conan’s universe and teams up with Red Sonja in a parallel world.
‘Shape of Sorrow’ is where The Night Eternal envision an ‘80s NES 8-bit sound. I knew right there that it was taking me back to my childhood, playing Nintendo as the band seemed to envision themselves writing a score for God of War, The Legend of Zelda, or even Samus Aran’s theme for the Metroid universe. Closing out Cold Velvet is the eerie, spaghetti-western texture of ‘Dance on Crimson Ground’.
Here, The Night Eternal envision their own take on the Italian Western, creating an alternate soundtrack in which the two Sergios, Leone and Corbucci, could be writing this metallic and tragic setting during 1968’s The Great Silence. We witness the tragic story of a mute gunslinger through a high-rising yet operatic epic, with emotional arrangements that capture the hero’s sorrowful fate.
The band are clearly their own visionaries when it comes to writing a film score within an NWOBHM-inspired framework. Their music speaks volumes, channeling the spirit of the power metal movement as it begins to erupt like a volcano exploding in the middle of nowhere, sending a lava-like tidal wave toward the town with no escape route.
I have to say that, while I’m new to The Night Eternal’s music, Cold Velvet was one hell of a roller-coaster ride from start to finish. It’s an ambitious, challenging, and completely out-of-this-world album that made me want to headbang at times and reminded me that metal is more than just a five-letter word, it’s an experience, an escape, and a world of its own.
If this is where The Night Eternal are heading next, then I’m more than ready to see where the road takes them. Let’s hope there’s plenty more where that came from.
