Aeternus - ...And So the Night Became

Of all the Black Metal bands that came out of Norway in the '90s, I think Aeternus is the most underrated. In fact in over 10 years of jocking this band furiously, I cannot remember offhand anybody ever saying "Yeah, I've listened to that them!'. Aeternus does a lot of things and does them all well. There are distinct elements of black metal, death metal, doom, viking metal and folk music. Right now you're probably thinking "Dude, almost every band ever has claimed to mix a million styles, and they're all either lying or terrible". This is true. But all those bands weren't Aeternus. I can't think of a single band that really sounds like this. The drums are punishing, the vocals are commanding and fucking IMMENSE, and the writing displays a keenly developed sense of structure as well as an eloquent, mournful melodic slant. The only knock on it is the muddy Greighallen production that was par-for-the-course at this point. ...And So the Night Became in it's entirety is majestic and monolithic, and feels like a mere fraction of it's hour-long runtime.
http://www.mediafire.com/?mmztwwiixtt