RockRoast

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.

Fans of the neo-prog band Frost* probably already know that the band have reconvened and begun work on a second album. What they may not know is that writer/producer/keyboardist/frontman Jem Godfrey is doing his best to keep anxious fans from dying of boredom as they wait.

Godfrey has been uploading two or three youtube videos a month under the name “planetfrost.” These videos, called The Frost Reports, detail the daily activities of the band’s studio work, including the witty banter, the wacky antics, and the occasional recording and mixing.

The Frost Reports tend to offer the viewer brief, incomplete snippets of the new songs, and while it’s not much, it certainly shows a lot of promise. Fans thirsting for any glimpse at the anticipated followup to 2006’s Milliontown should be able to wet their whistles. But most of these videos involve the band members–mostly Jem Godfrey–simply goofing off. It’s entertaining, sometimes awkward, and frequently funny. Just wait for the part when Godfrey realizes that all keyboards have some little loose thing rattling around inside of them.

But you have to wonder if all the goofing off is what’s taking this album so long.

The important thing, however, is that in one of January’s reports, Godfrey briefly outlined the band’s schedule and said that he hopes to have the whole record ready by May. Frost* fans rejoice–your wait may soon be over.

For years, the members of progressive metal titans Dream Theater have joked that, if they ever had the opportunity to release a compilation CD, they’d call it “Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit.” Singular.

The joke is a reference to the closest thing the band ever had to mainstream success. In 1992, Dream Theater’s single “Pull Me Under” became a surprise hit, making a dent in the Mainstream Rock Tracks charts and getting considerable play on MTV. And though the band would put out seven more studio albums over the next fifteen years, they would never recapture the success of “Pull Me Under.” Instead, they built a more or less “underground” fanbase that, after twenty years of music, has earned them an opportunity to release a greatest hits collection.

Except they only have one hit.

So other than put out a CD with one song on it, Dream Theater have decided to add 21 other pretty cool songs. The compilation contains two discs. The first is the “dark side” of Dream Theater, including “Pull Me Under” and ten other heavy tracks. The second is the “light side,” which offers eleven softer ballads. Overall, Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit provides the listener with an accurate portrayal of the band at its loudest and its softest.

Many fans of the band are critical of the tracklisting, as they feel that many favorites and “signature songs” have been omitted. But I think the tracks are geared more toward casual listeners and should satisfy that group of people just fine. Even for the die-hard listener, however, there are plenty of favorites. I think the tracklisting has a pretty good “something for everyone” feel to it.

It’s also notable that producer Kevin Shirley has remixed three songs (Pull Me Under, Take the Time, and Another Day) for this compilation, and “Pull Me Under” in particular sounds great. You can stream ten of the twenty-two songs, including “Pull Me Under,” here.

Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit (…and 21 other pretty cool songs) is scheduled for release on April 1st from Rhino Records.