THE SCATTERING OF ASHES

After "Buried in oblivion", this great band from Regina, Canada, has created another very good album. Let's start with the wonderful cover (really wonderful): Mattias Norén has represented perfectly the mood of the songs: a balance between strenght (the statue) and frailty (the ashes). In fact here we have the "growling" voice and the "clear" one (and sometimes an acute "screaming"). But don't worry if you don't like growling (Tim Roth's voice), because in this case it fits perfectly the speed and the power of the songs, and the clean vocals by Stu Block are so good, too. The songs are catchy, relatively short (max lenght is 5.08), but well focused, all the instruments are perfectly played, high quality production. The guitar playing alone is outstanding. Great and fast solos, catchy and powerful riffs, and also some passages of acoustic guitar (Surrounded by night). Listen to this album and you won't regret it, even if you're not a fan of "death" prog-metal, or, if you want, prog metal with some death metal shades. The whole album is outstanding, no weak or filler tracks (Novus Inceptum is an intro). The moods you will find are speediness, anger, aggressivity, but also some peaceful moments (to be true, only one!). I would like to repeat my personal opinion on the cover art: a marvelous artwork. One of the nominee to be the best album of 2006. I REALLY suggest it to everyone. A real masterpiece.

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...

This is Into Eternity's release after the incredible Buried in Oblivion. Scattering of Ashes seems lacking in my opinion but still manages to have some small amounts of good moments. In this fourth addition we can listen yet again to a new vocalist: Stu Block and another new member bassist Troy Bleich which have replaced the leaving members. The album's quality I would have to say it's their best so far but the music it's somewhat frustrating and boring rather than enjoyable.

First of all Stu Block's high pitched vocals are extremely annoying and exaggerated for that matter in a very similar way to those of James Labrie (Dream Theater) but to a lesser extent. I understand that many of these bands of a similar genre have a high pitched singer, which I truly enjoy but here we find yet another exaggerated singer that really annoys (seriously he does). The only good thing brought by Stu Block would have to be the variety styles and range of his vocals, which creates a variety in the music. As for the music, it sounds robotically and a bit repetitive especially the drums and the guitar solos. Don't get me wrong this isn't a terrible album but compared to their previous album Buried in Oblivion, Scattering of Ashes falls incredibly short. It seems as if they lost all of their musical inspiration.

That being said, there are still some good moments in this album but are very few and extremely scarce and they aren't enough to make keep listening the album for a long time. The first good song would have to be A Past Beyond Memory with a not very "wow" solo (most of which sound very similar) but has great heavy riff and a good melody in the chorus. Not very good but it manages to keep the album from not sucking in its entirety. Their next song Surrounded by Night which has a very good intro melody, but the atmosphere gets a bit ruined when the song goes to their second fast paced part. The solo is decent and manages to keep the songs intensive dark atmosphere and melody. Another good song would have to be Paralyzed which is the only song with a similar sound yet a different rhythm in one. In this song Stu Block manages to make good use of annoying voice by making it sound appealing for the song. All the other songs I find repetitive, identical and overall lack of musicianship.

In overall the Scattering of Ashes it's not a completely bad album. It still has some pretty decent moments. Also I find this album lacking and extremely repetitive with its rhythms and melodies. Into Eternity has gone back to their bad habits in repeating melodies and rhythm and with the addition of an annoying vocalist this band has gone from one of my favorites to becoming another band being left behind.

A 2.7 for me. Really frustrating.

Okay, so this music is neat. The guitars are fast, the drums faster, and the vocals broad enough to attract attention. The only problem is that the music never goes anywhere.

The only part of this band that is not standard death metal fare are the vocals. Stu is capable, in a very Devin Townsend sort of fashion, to range his voice from screams to roars to yells to growls to melodic singing to this hysterical yet mesmerizing falsetto. In truth, if it were not for the falsetto, I would not have given them much of the time of the day, and it is this same quality that bumps this album from one to two stars.

Everything else, like I've said, is pretty traditional death metal fare. It's fast, it's heavy, they sing about emotional distress and other sad things, and the semi-progressive riffs yank you left and right as they shift awkwardly back and forth and to and fro. The instruments all can play really fast, blazing with solos and double bass (although, there may not be a bass player. I've never heard him on here). It's all fun, and kind of silly sometimes, but the songs all blend together and pretty much sound the same.

And that's where we are. There's no progression, there are no new things tried. The band plays death metal like they know, plus with a few Dream Theater sort of elements, but in the end, they have nothing new to offer other than that fascinating falsetto voice that shows up every now and then...

'The Scattering Of Ashes' - Into Eternity (6/10)

I cannot quite see why this album has such a low overall rating. The musicianship on this album is fantastic, the songwriting is (for the most part) decent, and there are even a few songs that stand out as being 'outstanding.' While this isn't a masterpiece by any measure, the remarkable energy and sporadic nature of this album deserve their fair share of credit.

I'm actually quite suprised that a band like Into Eternity meets such disdainful opinions from this site. The whole meaning of being progressive is trying out new things, and being unpredictable. Into Eternity fashion themselves as one of the most progressive metal bands out there today. While they may not have 'A Change of Seasons' type epics, or random jazz interludes, there has to be progressive credit due to a band that can manage to work every possible metal vocal style into one phrase!

While alot of the songs could have definately been improved with a bit more songwriting pose, its definately worth a few good listens. Songs like 'Severe Emotional Distress', 'Timeless Winter', and 'Surrounded By Night,' even demonstrate that the band has the potential to possibly make a true masterpiece, in their own time. But as it stands, this album falls short. All in all though, pretty good music (with the exception of a few hurtful songs such as the painful 'Eternal'), and a hopeful foundation of what's to come!

The Scattering of Ashes is the fourth full-length studio album by Canadian progressive extreme metal act Into Eternity. None of the preceeding albums have impressed me much and I´m beginning to think that Into Eternity will have to make a utopian perfect album to convince me. Yet again my curiosity got the better of me and I´ve had this album on loan for the last couple of months.

The music on the album is a kind of modern melodic death metal with progressive metal elements.The vocal style on the album is not far from the vocal style on the last couple of albums by 3 Inches of Blood. One snarling vocal type, one Rob Halford ( Judas Priest) high pitched vocal type and some melodic clean singing ( well the latter can´t really be compared to 3 Inches of Blood). The clean sung vocal lines are really melodic, but like on all earlier releases by Into Eternity, the vocal lines are not very memorable and after a couple of songs it all kinda sounds the same to me. It´s the same with the music. It´s very melodic and quite powerful most of the time, but after a couple of tracks the songs become forgettable and sounds too much the same. This music seriously lack hooks. While the music is very well executed, the production is top notch and the music as such is pretty well written to, I just can´t get excited about The Scattering of Ashes. And while I probably should give the album 3 stars because of the above mentioned qualities I can´t give something like this more than a 2.5 star rating. Fans of melodic death metal with progressive sensibilities might enjoy this more than I do.

With Scattering the ashes Into Eternity reached to the forth album, released in 2006 at Century media. While doesn't have the brilliancy of the previous album is still a good release, even the ratings of this album are very low, strange!! To me is a a fair release, maybe a little faster then before, the growling vocals again alternates very well with the clean ones, but the music even is ok it doesn't has great ideas. As a reviewers said here, the music never goes anywhere, is a problem that must be solved if they wanted to become wider known and respected. Also I like the energy of the album, lots of changes in tempo, nice shifts between guitarist and drumr, great usicianship, but aimless in the end. Not a track is particular weak, but not one is strong aswell, maybe Eternal has some great atmosphere then others. Well, a 3 star album for me, for sure not a bad album to give 1 star, but nothing realy special either. Athing that will happen with the next release also.

The Scattering of Ashes is cold. You feel as though you can actually reach out and touch the storm the experience conveys; the atmosphere is just that wonderfully tangible. But with a beautiful vibe comes great compositions that offer a supreme demonstration of extreme power metal. There's a progressive air that looms about the technical rapid-fire riffage, as the menacing growls and impressive shrieks coat each effort in layers of darkness and melancholy. Aggression as well, sure, but definitely melancholy. As fun as the intricate arrangements and blazing virtuosity prove to be, the undertow of futility and hopelessness remains beneath the flashy exterior of the instruments. Perhaps that's the true source of this collection's quality; you're always hearing tales of personal struggle and desperation, but they're filtered through both addictive melodies and exhausting levels of instrumental showmanship. The way these attributes simultaneously repel and blend with each other is fascinating, and often leads to the best pieces on offer here. Add some folk to the mix (the lovely acoustic intro to "Surrounded by Night" is sublime), and you really feel transported into a different environment altogether.

We've heard the theme of winter used countless times, whether it's by droves of extreme metal groups coming out every year or even simply an overexposure to Christmas music. But The Scattering of Ashes is one of the closest I've heard to whisking me away to different locations and time periods altogether while still fitting snugly into its conveyances of harsh tundras and the lonesome nights in the wilderness. But remember: at the end of the day, you're still listening to an intense power/prog/extreme metal album, one of equal parts aggression and melody. At the end of the day, you're listening to a group who can juggle genres at a master-class level and maintain their emotive musical/lyrical content in the process. You're listening to a singer who can sing three or four different styles in the same damn song without breaking a sweat. The Scattering of Ashes is the sound of incredible atmosphere and concepts carried by a group who are 100% certain they can live up to the task they set for themselves: the task of melding emotion and virtuosity almost flawlessly. At the end of the day, this is a thing of beauty. A thing of progressive, dense, brutal beauty.