UMUR "Into Eternity" is the self titled debut album from Canadian metalcore/ melodic death metal act Into Eternity. The album was originally self-released in 1999 but was picked up for a 2000 re-release by DVS Records.

My introduction to Into Eternity was through their 2nd and 3rd full-length studio albums "Dead or Dreaming (2001)" and "Buried in Oblivion (2004)". Into Eternity is a band that will dazzle a lot of people on initial listen as their music sounds deceivingly catchy and intriguingly technical. After a while you come to realise that the songs aren´t really that catchy and that the technical parts are not that intriguing either. This debut album by Into Eternity might be the best example I know, of a thin musical shell that upon the slightest touch will burst and leave you with nothing. The album seriously lacks compositional depth.

The music on the album features elements from different metal genres like Thrash metal, metalcore and melodic death metal. The death metal part is mostly due to the growling vocals which occasionally appear. The music is very melodic with a lot of clean sung choruses. The music isn´t technical in a tech metal sense but it´s pretty well played. There are some acoustic playing put in for variation in songs like "A Frozen Escape" and the title track. As such Tim Roth who handles the lead vocals have a pretty good voice but the melody lines even though they are very melodic are not memorable at all. Almost every song on the album sounds exactly the same and I can´t remember any of them after listening to the album. The album is somewhat a paradox. Extremely melodic yet not memorable at all. The clean vocals that on initial listen sounds very good also end up annoying the hell out of me. They are way to nice and not edgy enough for me. It doesn´t help to have a good singer when the parts he sings are so generic and at times downright cringe worthy. It has to be mentioned here that the growling vocals are very badly executed too. They sound so weak. Damn it! if you mean it! Sing it like you do.

The musicianship is as such allright. The playing is faultless but not very inspired or innovative.

The production is really bad and of course a bad sound quality doesn´t help music that is already weak. It´s especially the guitar sound I have a hard time appreciating.

It´s very rarely that I give albums 1 star but this album contains the kind of metal music that gives metal a bad name IMO. In my world that´s close to a mortal sin and Into Eternity will pay for their evil deeds with this 1 star rating (LOL). You have probably guessed it by now but I will recommend that you don´t waste your time or money on this album. If you´re curious about Into Eternity listen to some of their later albums instead. It´s about the same style but the sound is better and there are more memorable moments on those albums. This album should only be purchased if you like very tame and polished metalcore/ melodic death metal. It´s really no wonder why this album was self-financed and self-released the first time around.

Conor Fynes '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 T 666 While the album is nothing to write home about, it's a listenable disc of melodic death metal with hints of progressive-metal.

Evidently, the record is a step back after the very competent "The Scattering of Ashes" (pummeled by many critics, for reasons beyond me.) That disc was a very acceptable progressive-technical death metal effort, with hints of SYMPHONY X, PAIN OF SALVATION, but mostly with strong death metal elements. The songs were very similar in structure (verses with melodic choruses), the growling was efficient, and the riffs were technical and interesting.

All is not lost in "The Incurable Tragedy" but some of these strengths are not as evident now. First, the riffs and the different sections seem to have been arranged in the first order that came to the mind of the musicians; everything is a little bit chaotic here. Second, the vocals have gotten higher, at times barely resembling growling at all. The music is much more similar to melodic death metal bands like SCAR SYMMETRY or SOILWORK, but probably without the constant flashy elements of the former or the coherence of the latter.

This band suffers from the "show-off" syndrome of many extreme bands whose drummers think that constantly playing fills and double bass at incredible speeds ads any magic to the music. This "I'm-a-star" mentality, so typical of rock today, is also very present in metal bands, like INTO ETERNITY.

In the end, the right rating for the album is a 2.5.

Again, this is no 1-star album. It's listenable and entertaining, if not really brilliant.