THE SCATTERING OF ASHES

This release is enigmatic to me. The band puts out a good release, displaying their abilities while managing to create some memorable lines both musically and vocally, and also showing tremendous growth from their previous album which was also a growth over the album before that. Then, the vocalist leaves the band and is replaced by Stu Block, who is more diverse and charismatic. Logic would tell you that the band's next output will be killer. Now, I'm not one to set my expectations too high, and of course I didn't here; Into Eternity isn't even one of my favorite bands, let alone one I can trust with every release yet. Still, I was interested in hearing what they'd do next. Not being in a hurry to pick this thing up, it ended up being my brother who got a hold of the album and played it for me. I had to hold myself back from laughing at this. It sounds terrible!

Notice that I said it sounds terrible. After pushing through that first track and getting a little further into the record, I figured out where the band failed. Despite solid performances across the board, two problems really hinder the qualities from comiing through: song arrangement and production. We'll start with the latter...

What on earth were they thinking giving the bass drum that tone? It sounds like a trigger that uses the sample of a bass drum being played with a loose head. I don't care if this guy is playing well, and he is usually playing well, this sound is unbearable. It's mostly the drums that are problematic, but in generally the album sounds a bit treble-heavy and weak. Maybe these guys were going for a retro feel, but that is a silly idea to begin with. 80's metal sounds awful. Writing good music and purposely recording it to sound like that is like writing an amazing script for a movie and then having Ben Affleck play the lead role.

Then we have to look at the arrangements. The riffs, for the most part, are pretty good. The solos are good, despite not being anything special. The vocals are pretty crazy, but workable. Every individual thought has some merit (except for that first song - not the intro - that thing is just embarrassing with its pointless blast beats on those ridiculous drums), and I would be enjoying most of them if it weren't for the production, but they are just slapped together with no transitioning whatsoever. This has been a problem on all of their previous releases as well, but things are really, really haphazard this time around. I like unpredictable music, but only if the ideas flow and make sense after being able to analyze it. This doesn't sound like it was meant to be full of suprises, though. I think the band thinks these transitions are legitimate. If so, that just means they are immature as writers.

Well, they had potential...