Into Eternity Update
Well, my hopes for a great new album from Into Eternity were veritably murdered by an April 2nd post on their official website.
The band have announced that the title of their upcoming release is The Incurable Tragedy. Earlier, I had expressed interest in their next album because guitarist Tim Roth had described it as a concept album. But it seems the concept will revolve around the cancer-related deaths of several of Roth’s friends and family members.
Poor guy. But cancer isn’t exactly the best subject matter for a concept album. I was hoping for something along the lines of Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime. I wanted something with one of those awesome fictional plots. But it appears that Roth’s lyrics will be intensely personal and overwhelmingly depressing. Kind of like his lyrics on the band’s last album, unfortunately.
I suppose only the release of the album will be able to confirm whether I’m right about the concept, but I’m not as optimistic as I was before this news.
Couple that with the release of a demo track from The Incurable Tragedy recently released on the band’s Myspace page and I’m hardly optimistic at all. The song, “Diagnosis Terminal,” sounds like it would have belonged very well on Into Eternity’s previous release, The Scattering of Ashes, in that it is bursting with unused potential.
“Diagnosis Terminal” contains some of the band’s trademark sounds: quick, ill-transitioned time signature changes, mediocre vocals ranging from throaty screams to low growls to clean falsetto, melodies that alternate between flatness and beauty, moments of instrumental brilliance buried between loud solos and hyperactive riffs, and the usual raping of the double-bass pedal. It’s discouraging to hear so many things in one song that are so similar to the mess that was The Scattering of Ashes. I’d hoped to hear some kind of progression, a different direction, or a bit more variety. But “Diagnosis Terminal” is only one song. Hopefully the rest of The Incurable Tragedy will be better.
We can only hope.
Tags: concept album, death metal, Diagnosis Terminal, Into Eternity, metal, music, Operation: Mindcrime, Pink Floyd, progressive death metal, progressive metal, Queensryche, rock music, The Incurable Tragedy, The Scattering of Ashes, The Wall, Tim Roth