Into Eternity are not easy to categorize and put in a nice little box with a label on. They have elements from progressive metal, death and black metal, heavy metal and some pretty soulful ballads on top of that.
Their previous effort
Buried in Oblivion was an amazing album bringing together all the aforementioned metal styles producing a rock solid album. Though the new one,
The Scattering of Ashes is good too, it doesn't quite hit the same levels as the previous one. They have a new frontman and bassplayer and on top of that they lost a guitarplayer, however the band remains the brainchild of founding members Rim Roth on guitars and death vocals and the drummer Jim Austin.
The new singer, Stu Block, sounds a lot like the previous one, Chris Krall, both singing in a very clean and high pitched way. But it seems that where Chris Krall did some death vocals too, Stu Block does a pretty good Tim Ripper Owens impersonation (
Judas Priest among others). But I still preferred the old singer, he had more balls in his vocals. The death grunts are really good, though.
The guitar work is great here, nice and tight with some great solos. However, I think that going from two guitars to one has taken some of the balls away. I know that Tim Roth probably wrote all guitar parts before too but now the riffing has regrettably taken a step back. The riffs are still pretty progressive without going to tech-land. You can hear that the songs are in focus but not all riffs are equally exciting with a few fillers here and there. The solos are melodic and though impressive, they also tend to support the songs compared to showcase the skills of the soloist.
The drummer, Jim Austin, deserves special mention because he isn't exactly a run-of-the-mill metal drummer. No, he incorporates drumming patterns from not only progressive metal but also a lot from more extreme genres. It's pretty cool to hear him grinding away after a quiet part, adding some aggression. The production really helps to make his double bass drumming sound incredibly fast. The bass drums are high in the mix which is ok since he isn't blasting at full speed most of the time. But when he finally lets go, it sounds very impressive. Not a lot of standard metal drummers can play tripplets in 216.
When you see the name Andy Sneap mentioned on a record as the man behind the mixing and mastering, you can assume that the production will be very, very good. Maybe a tiny bit overproduced but then again I kind of like that sound. He is also the man behind albums from bands such as
Arch Enemy and
Nevermore.
The fact that I'm a bit disappointed doesn't mean that
The Scattering of Ashes isn't a good album. Overall it's a rock solid album with great songs on it, just not as good as on
Buried in Oblivion. If you liked that one, you'll probably like this one too since the style is pretty much the same. Great musicanship, good songs and near perfect production should put this album on a lot of people's wish list.
Written by
Tajs Sunday, December 3, 2006
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