Creator-Destructor Records will release To Conquer Eternal Damnation, the incinerating debut album from Oakland, California-based melodic death metal outfit Darkness Everywhere, confirming the album for release May 10 alongside its cover art, tracklisting, and a video for the lead single, “Retaliation.”

Darkness Everywhere formed as a trio in late 2020 with the goal of writing songs heavily influenced by the classic mid-1990s Swedish melodic death metal sound. However, this isn’t the individual members’ first time around the block when it comes to melodic death metal. Founding vocalist/guitarist/drummer Ben Murray is a founding member of Bay Area band Light This City, as well as being the owner Creator-Destructor Records, and now also a member of A Wilhelm Scream. Guitarist Cameron Stucky is a member of symphonic melodic metal act Crepuscle. Bassist Zack Ohren recorded and produced all of Light This City’s albums throughout the past twenty years and continues to be one of the leading metal producers in the industry, having worked with Machine Head, All Shall Perish, Animosity, Decapitation, Suffocation, and many more. Drummer Garrett Garvey fleshes out the now four-piece lineup of Darkness Everywhere.

The glory years of early In Flames, At the Gates, and Dark Tranquillity are what largely inform the sound and aesthetic of Darkness Everywhere. The core of the band is built on the feel of those legendary records, while offering a refreshing take on the no frills melodic death metal sound akin to the output of modern outfits Horrendous, Majesties, and Upon Stone. The band wastes no time in getting to the point of melodic death metal riffing and driving, thrashing tempos. Preceded by their 2022 debut EP, The Seventh Circle, and 2023 standalone single “The Glow Of Haunted Existence,” To Conquer Eternal Damnation is the band’s first full-length venture.

Unstoppable and unflinching from the first note, To Conquer Eternal Damnation delivers ten volatile tracks, burning with the patented early-1990s Gothenburg sound, adrenalized with merciless high-tempo executions forged by the second wave bands of the style, citing The Haunted, Dimension Zero, Carcass, and Hypocrisy. With zero ballads or filler tracks, and no venturing off-course, through every minute of the album, Darkness Everywhere stays intensely focused on decimating their target: the listener.

To Conquer Eternal Damnation was produced, mixed, mastered by the band’s own Zack Ohren at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland and completed with artwork by Adam Burke and photography by Joe Calixto, and the track “The Architect of Misery” features guest vocals from Laura Nichol of Light This City.

The first public foretaste of the album is the crushing opening song, “Retaliation,” which is delivered through an intense video directed and edited by Alessandro Pulisci (Ugly Owl Films).

Ben Murray states, “We’re incredibly proud of this album, and really feel that it encompasses everything we set out to do with this band. The ten tracks that make up the record are a mixture of all our favorite elements of classic melodic death metal. To Conquer Eternal Damnation is a continuation of where we were headed with our debut EP but intensified in every way.”

To Conquer Eternal Damnation will be released May 10 on LP, CD, MC, and digital platforms. Digitally preorder on Bandcamp.

Tracklisting:

“Retaliation”
“The Architect Of Misery”
“To Conquer Eternal Damnation”
“Cosmic Misfortune”
“A Dreaded Eclipse”
“Starving Eyes”
“The Final Descent”
“Into The Unknown”
“In Blood They Will Drown”
“The Tragedy Of Infinite Loss”

Live dates:

April
20 – Redwood City, CA – The Hub

May
25 – San Francisco, CA – Neck Of The Woods 

“Retaliation” video:

(Photo – Joe Calixto)