NO LOVE FOR HATE ETERNAL?

Over at Invisible Oranges, Cosmo Lee recently revealed his own #1 pick for Decibel’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade: Hate Eternal’s 2005 release, I, Monarch. I don’t have that magazine in front of me, but if memory serves, it didn’t make the list. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it – or any other Hate Eternal albums – on any decade-end lists.

I, Monarch isn’t my favorite Hate Eternal album – I’d argue that Erik Rutan far surpassed it with 2008’s Fury and Flames – but it is an awesome, awesome album. Few, if any, bands make more brutal music than Hate Eternal, and Rutan is constantly pushing the envelope of what death metal can be.

So here’s “I, Monarch” – the song – in Cosmo and Rutan’s honor.

Find out my own personal favorite Hate Eternal song after the jump.

Okay, it’s “Tombeau (Le Tombeau De La Fureur et Des Flames),” from Fury and Flames. A lot of the album deals with the passing of Rutan’s friend, former H.E. bassist Jared Anderson, who died in 2006 at age 31. I know it’s weird to say about a death metal song, but when Rutan screams “YOU SHALL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN/YOU SHALL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED,” it gets me a little choked up every time…

-AR