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.

Well, it’s mid-February. Which means it’s still cold and gloomy outside, at least in this part of the world. Which may be why I’ve been listening to so much death metal lately.

But anyway. Speaking of death metal and mid-February, there may be a bit of news that could cheer up anyone suffering from winter blues. Progressive/melodic death metal band Into Eternity may soon be checking into a studio to begin recording their next album. Mid-February was the estimated starting date for the recording process, according to a January 23rd post by guitarist Tim Roth on Into Eternity’s official website.

I’m not familiar with Into Eternity’s catalog in depth, but I did pick up their last effort, “The Scattering of Ashes,” a few months back. I can’t say I was too impressed. I’m a bit picky about death growls, and I didn’t consider Into Eternity’s to have been tastefully done. Not to mention the music was pretty ridiculous, all super-fast playing with clumsy time signature changes and overcaffeinated blast beats. However, when they mellowed out, sang cleanly, and held back a little on the theatrics, they really shined. And that at least showed some promise for the future.

But not enough for me. I wasn’t interested in buying any more music from these guys. But then I happened to read on their website (the November 5th news post) that they were working on a concept album. I’m a big sucker for a concept album, so all of a sudden, I’m interested in these guys again. With a little luck, they’ll create a cool concept to accompany their work, hopefully shying away a bit from the emo-ness of their lyrics on “The Scattering of Ashes.” And if the music matures a bit too, I might actually thoroughly enjoy this next one.

That’s not to say that they couldn’t totally screw it up, though. Honestly, I’m not expecting much, but I’m attempting to keep a postive perspective to combat the gloomy weather.