Following the widespread acclaim of their 2024 full-length Skinwalker and the evocative companion EP Celestial, THE ETERNAL return with Obscured Horizons, an album that stands as both culmination and evolution.
Where Skinwalker was hailed for its emotional weight, cinematic scope and seamless fusion of melancholic atmosphere with crushing heaviness, and Celestial further expanded the band’s sonic palette with its introspective depth and dynamic intensity, Obscured Horizons pushes even further into uncharted territory. The album refines The Eternal’s signature blend of doom-laden textures, progressive sophistication and haunting melodic resonance, while embracing a broader, more expansive sound that feels both intimate and monumental.
At its core, Obscured Horizons is an exploration of disillusionment, fractured identity and the struggle to reclaim clarity in a world saturated with distortion. The album moves through states of emotional collapse, liminal transition and existential unrest, confronting deception, both external and internal, before emerging into renewal and self-awareness. Rather than surrendering to decay, Obscured Horizons charts a defiant ascent, refusing numbness, rejecting illusion and ultimately reclaiming light from the shadows that threaten to eclipse it
To celebrate the release of the new album The Eternal are heading out on the road for a tour of Australia alongside Amorphis so I sat down to chat to Mark from the band about the album and tour.
As we started our chat we began by talking about the two new members of The Eternal – musicians that fans of Amorphis will be very aware of – Jan Rechberger who is the current Amorphis drummer and Niclas Etelavuori Amorphis’s ex-bassist – and how that has seen the band hit a creative spark.
“We started it pretty much as soon as we mixed our last album, Skinwalker,” he explains. “We had a bit of downtime because we were working on, you know, setting up the release and the new record deal for the band around the time of Skinwalker. So we actually just started demoing and basically, as we started writing, everybody just started submitting demos, which for me was a new experience, being the primary songwriter of the band for most of the band’s history.”
“So, I don’t know if it was influence as such, but it was collaborative, and everyone just started putting in stuff,” he continues. “And I was like, wow, this is amazing. So, all of a sudden, I had just a shitload of songs, including my own, to work on, and we ended We ended up with about 15 tracks and I guess what really shaped Obscure Horizons is that we, the label asked us if we’d release an EP earlier in the year, which we did, which was called Celestial. And we basically were able to really split the material we had up into two different sort of packages. And I think that really helped sort of, I guess, refine the concept of what became Obscure Horizons.”
When we delve a little further into the new music I ask Mark whether or not he feels the new members have changed the sound of The Eternal at all.
“Yeah, I think so,” he answers quickly. “I mean, I definitely think there’s some more European influences in some of the melodic approach. And yeah, I mean, the guys are very… Yarn’s a record producer, I’m a record producer. We’ve recorded and mixed it ourselves as well, which is worth noting. The whole thing is in-house. I think it’s definitely a step in a Probably taking what we did in Skinwalker where the guys kind of joined but some of the demos are already done, I guess. But this is like completely from scratch together and I think it just really takes all the things we were trying to kind of start to piece together and it’s kind of really solidified it in a more streamlined package, I guess.”
Even though there is that melodic sound coming through on the new album the doom/black metal vibe of the previous albums is still present and soon I found myself asking Mark about how that mirrors that the darker themes explored on this album.
“I write all the lyrics, and I’m always trying to, I guess, not necessarily… start as kind of a doomy sound… more doom-influenced,” he explains. “So, you know, as I was younger, the lyrics were a bit more of that kind of doom and gloom vibe, which is cool. But then we definitely started writing from what has always been a bit of a personal perspective, but I started to bring that into more of the realms of reality. And I guess every album kind of ends up being a little bit of a theme, and I don’t really think about it, whereas the theme of Skinwalker was kind of this, you know, dealing with narcissism and people that don’t present themselves as they really are and things like that. And this one was really more personal, again, because it was really about some major changes I was going through in my own life. You know, just changing my mindset, you know, I stopped drinking, all kinds of things just changed in the realm of… And during the lyric process was when I was going through all these sort of mind, you know, resets of my mind, I guess. So, you know, and I feel that there’s actually kind of a lot of hope in a lot of the lyrics.
“I think you can approach things from a melancholic way, but still sort of, you know, paint a little bit of a… a little bit of a hope that we’re trying to head somewhere,” he says continuing. “Even if we’re feeling down people, we want to get to somewhere better. I know bands who generally do darker music don’t necessarily go from that perspective, but for me, I guess that’s where Obscured Horizons is. It’s like the actual song itself is don’t let the things around you obscure your horizons to getting to a better place, I guess. Yeah, there’s lots of changes in my In my mindset, in my life, and I documented it all through the lyrics. Probably the last song, Awaken, is when that really kind of took shape. And then I guess that concept kind of goes through the whole record.”
To finish off I asked Mark what the fans can expect from this tour and it turns out we are in for a few surprises.
“Yeah, so obviously it’s an interesting one for our drummer because he’s doing double duties – so he’s doing Amorphous and The Eternal,” he says with a laugh. :And yeah, we’re bringing in around four songs from the new record. And yeah, it’ll be the first time we play them. And also, you know, being that we don’t live in the same country, rehearsal is always an interesting thing. But we’re very prolific at rehearsing by ourselves and Kind of getting together and bringing it together over a rehearsal or two. So, yeah, I mean, it’s going to be great to get these new songs on stage. You know, we’re really excited about this record.”
“We think that it kind of really represents where we’re heading,” he says continuing. “And we’re also going to obviously delve into Skinwalker and the albums before that. Obviously, we’ve got like eight records. So, you know, we’ll be definitely trying to cover some of the other material. We really like the Amorphous guys and they’re really down to earth. It’s going to be a really, I think, cohesive tour. It’s just the two of us, we’re kind of sharing the sound crew. It’s going to be a really good sounding night of sort of moody, dark metal, I guess. So yeah, it’s a really exciting way. I mean, the album comes out a couple of days before, so really exciting.”