Into Eternity
Dead or Dreaming
Century Media
2002
by Nathan Pearce
Its amazing how a band can sneak up on you without ever having knowledge of them. Into Eternity did this exact thing with me. After sifting through numerous average promos, I popped Dead or Dreaming into my CD player. Wow! What a great surprise! Apparently a band can incorporate amazing clean vocals, awesome black metal rasps, crazy guitar riffs, keyboards, modern progressive song structures, and about every other aspect of extreme metal you can think of without sounding fractured and chaotic.
In fact, Into Eternity can easily conjure up memories of Queensryche without sounding dated, sounds of Ulvers Kveldsjanger without sounding like the typical folk metal band, and then they throw in every type of amazing vocal they can manage without losing any sense of the over-all structure of the song. Its the sheer brilliance of every song on this album that causes me to hesitate in categorizing this band. If they deserve any tag, it would have to be progressive metal. With so many styles colliding in one beautiful collage of extreme music, nothing else will fit this band.
As of my most recent listening of Dead or Dreaming, I refuse to pick favorites among this bands excellent portfolio of songs. It seriously is that hard to find a song that sticks out more than others. This isnt because they all sound the same, but because they all sound so distinct and complete. When a band can put a group of songs together with this sort of class, one can only hope to pick out the weaker songs when deciding on a favorite track or two. Fortunately, for Into Eternity, there are no weak songs on this CD.
I cant decide who to recommend this album to. Fans of everything from Queensryche to Iced Earth to In Flames to Ulver should find something to love on Dead or Dreaming. Into Eternity proves that through great songwriting many styles of metal can be combined to near perfection without losing any sense of originality.
9/10
www.centurymedia.com
Dead or Dreaming
Century Media
2002
by Nathan Pearce
Its amazing how a band can sneak up on you without ever having knowledge of them. Into Eternity did this exact thing with me. After sifting through numerous average promos, I popped Dead or Dreaming into my CD player. Wow! What a great surprise! Apparently a band can incorporate amazing clean vocals, awesome black metal rasps, crazy guitar riffs, keyboards, modern progressive song structures, and about every other aspect of extreme metal you can think of without sounding fractured and chaotic.
In fact, Into Eternity can easily conjure up memories of Queensryche without sounding dated, sounds of Ulvers Kveldsjanger without sounding like the typical folk metal band, and then they throw in every type of amazing vocal they can manage without losing any sense of the over-all structure of the song. Its the sheer brilliance of every song on this album that causes me to hesitate in categorizing this band. If they deserve any tag, it would have to be progressive metal. With so many styles colliding in one beautiful collage of extreme music, nothing else will fit this band.
As of my most recent listening of Dead or Dreaming, I refuse to pick favorites among this bands excellent portfolio of songs. It seriously is that hard to find a song that sticks out more than others. This isnt because they all sound the same, but because they all sound so distinct and complete. When a band can put a group of songs together with this sort of class, one can only hope to pick out the weaker songs when deciding on a favorite track or two. Fortunately, for Into Eternity, there are no weak songs on this CD.
I cant decide who to recommend this album to. Fans of everything from Queensryche to Iced Earth to In Flames to Ulver should find something to love on Dead or Dreaming. Into Eternity proves that through great songwriting many styles of metal can be combined to near perfection without losing any sense of originality.
9/10
www.centurymedia.com
