In the good old days—pre-Internet, pre-social media, and pre-billionaires who stole someone else’s electric car company, doing their best to influence politics throughout the world—we’d have called “Light Of Eternity” a “supergroup”.
These days, of course, collaboration is commonplace, but still, a union that includes Big Paul Ferguson of Killing Joke, Pauly Williams of Chaos UK, and Fred Schreck of The Ancients is still worthy of investigation.
“Aftershock” is their second EP, and you can hear the Killing Joke sound in work like the title track, but the thick, yet hooky riffs bring to mind bands like Prong.
Elsewhere, “Nebula” perhaps appropriately has something of the vastness of space about it. Electronic tinges (obviously more Williams’ than the others) and vocals that float out into the ether: “wander out into the universe alone” offers Schreck, and the whole thing feels like a voyage of discovery.
Slightly unsettling, perhaps, as it moves on, and there is something, perhaps of the underground club, in the pulsing beats of “Dark Hope”. “Just give me some hope,” goes the opening line, as it looks to channel the confusion that seems to permeate from every pore here.
This is a heavy record. Not just in terms of the riffs, but also in that it feels oppressive; there’s not a lot of laughs, nothing sleazy, rather just ominous tones in the last one: “Conformity”. “You’re just a slave of the state,” it reckons, and maybe we are.
“It’s hard to be hopeful,” says “Big Paul” in the press release they sent with this. And to be honest, you can listen to the news, as I did before typing this, and hear that wildfires are destroying everything that conflict hasn’t, that bills are rising, the only growth industry after 14 years of Tory rule is food banks, and the imminent drums of WWIII and find very little to be hopeful about.
However, if we are at the end of days, then at least Light Of Eternity have provided a fine soundtrack to the apocalypse.
Rating 8.5/10
REVIEW: LIGHT OF ETERNITY – AFTERSHOCK (2025)
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