DEAD OR DREAMING

INTO ETERNITY dates all the way back to 1997 in Regina, Saskatchewan in Canada's central plains region by founding members Tim Roth (vocals, guitar), Scott Krall (bass) and Jim Austin (drums) and together these guys crafted a sound that mixed progressive metal with melodic death metal and a touch of power metal. After the arrival of Chris McDougall on keyboards the band created their first self-titled debut that was released independently in 1999 and then re-released the following year on the DVS label. The album showed promise but displayed an immature band trying to get it right.

The following DEAD OR DREAMING could be thought of as the band's first official release which came out in 2001, also released twice first by DVS and then by Century Media Records. This album has ten tracks and squeaks past the 44 minute mark with lyrics written by Tim Roth and musical scores crafted by the entire band. In addition to the three original members and McDougall on keyboards, INTO ETERNITY added a second guitarist with Daniel Nargang with all members contributing to backing vocals including some extra help from Amy Ozog on 'Elysium Dream", "Selling God" and "Cyber Messiah.'

Unfortunately INTO ETERNITY delivers a style of progressive metal that i don't find very appealing. In many ways this band is a one-trick pony despite showcasing a wide variety of metal styles. While in its wake the band conjures up death metal growls, thrash metal riffs, power metal melodies and progressive metal complexities, the composiitons seem to all follow the same projectile and chord progressions with a clean vocal style that alternates with some death metal growls. The overall production has one of those polished sounds that takes the grit off of the metal distortion and allows the squeaky clean vocals to shine through.

There's not much i can say about this one. I find the vocals utterly irritating and cookie cutter rhythms and compositional styles are too monotonous for my tastes. The acoustic parts with clean vocals that pump up the synthesizers are just sappy and insincere and even the riffs are boring. The death metal growls are ridiculously strewn about with no rhyme or reason. This silly canned formula just makes me think of those high quality production videos with pretty boys letting their hair blow around with fans as they try to take the focus off the music. It's hard to find anything good to say about this really because it pushes all my *hate it* buttons and i'm quite fond of cheese and pop hooks. Yawn.

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