Review by Allan on October 29, 2002.

Only two albums and Into Eternity has more than doubled their worth. Their debut self-titled album showed that Into Eternity had the potential to become great band. It wasn’t until after they signed to Century Media that they would actually receive the distribution through North America that they deserved. Their sophomore album “Dead or Dreaming” is finally making it to that previously neglected audience, as it should have long ago.

Picture this: melodic death metal re-written with the intention of fusing it with modern progressive metal as well as hard rock. Now, take that sound and place it with a highly talented band not only in terms of their technical ability on their instruments, but also in musicianship. That’s what you get with Into Eternity.

Into Eternity somehow take in all these styles of metal and release them as a nicely blended mixture. Their music is progressive, but without the pretentious guitar wankery of a band like Dream Theater. However, it does hold the complexity of many of those progressive groups. The complexity leans a lot closer to the technical aspect of death metal, as you’ll notice in the particular riffs or even certain solos. Hard rock usually makes its way into Into Eternity’s sound with the rhythm section at times, and through the clean vocals. It’s not something that is totally abundant the entire time; it just makes its way in here and there. While holding technicality and fusing their diverse sound together is one of the most important things to Into Eternity, it certainly doesn’t overshadow the rest of their duties.

Melody can be found in every second of “Dead or Dreaming”, from the savage guitar lines of ‘Shallow’ to the classic intro of ‘Elysium Dream’. Both the keyboards and the guitars play off each other very well to create sounds that will plant themselves inside your head. There are only a few times if any that I think to myself that a particular melody was sub-par and should have been left off the album.

The band also does an excellent job of blending vocal styles. I’ll admit that at times, Daniel Nargang’s clean vocals don’t exactly lift my spirits. However, the death vocals of Tim Roth fit the music exceptionally well and they serve as a good dynamic when Nargang is around.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Into Eternity. My only real complaint would be that at times their songs seem to wonder off track. Some of those songs also have a bit of an odd structure that doesn’t quite work, and the transitions can be a little ruff. However, these problems probably won’t stop anybody from enjoying “Dead or Dreaming”.

Bottom Line: Into Eternity are the answer for those people who have grown bored of the usual melodic death metal, tired of the so called progression of bands like Dream Theater and Symphony X, or just want a well done album.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Originality: 7
Musicianship: 8
Atmosphere: 7
Production: 7
Overall: 7

Rating: 7.2 out of 10