Review Summary: The Incurable Tragedy is never as bad as the album title alludes it to be, but surely this is the first release for Into Eternity that is crippled by its own ambition.
Ever since I first heard 2004's megaton of an album
Buried in Oblivion, Into Eternity has quickly escalated to become one of my favorite bands. It's always been hard for me not to like any of the material they put out save for their self-titled debut, but unfortunately
The Incurable Tragedy is the first album since where I've been left with a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.
The Incurable Tragedy is a concept album, a first for the Canadian quintet. Lead guitarist and songwriter Tim Roth drew inspiration for the album due to the loss of his two best friends, brothers, whose lives were taken by cancer weeks within one another. Not terribly long afterward, his father's life was also taken by the disease. Tim's inspiration comes from a powerful subject matter, but sadly the material on
The Incurable Tragedy is not nearly as moving as the concept for the album would make you assume.
The songs on display here just aren't very dramatic and don't really mesh well with the lyrical content. I'm definitely not suggesting that we should see an album flooded with sappy ballads, but certainly the songs could have been more grandiose in scale. Hell, only a couple of songs even skim the 4 minute mark. It's just hard for me to feel what was intended when these songs of meager length are too over-the-top sounding to take seriously given the subject matter that's being sung about.
But not all is amiss on
The Incurable Tragedy. It's still generally the same great mix of power/prog melodic death metal you've come to know from Into Eternity, but the band's progressive influences have definitely come a bit more full circle this time around. In most cases these sections work especially on the intro/main riff of the spectacular "A Black Light Ending" which quickly became one of my favorite pieces off the album. I always encourage bands to try new things, but I think Into Eternity can do without these more progressive parts of their songs. Several songs including "Diagnosis Terminal" have so many sporadic time changes and funky time signatures that the song loses any type of direction it may have once had and the progressive parts become more of a hindrance on the overall enjoyment of the songs.
Luckily Into Eternity did without these segments in the three part ballad "The Incurable Tragedy." These are some of the better tracks off the album and definitely where most of the emotion conveyed by this concept album is felt. My only complaint is the fact that all three of these songs are far too short. I expected there to be at least one epic roller coaster of a song that would serve as the showcase for the album's concept but I found no such thing. And although I like all three parts to the song, I don't think any of them can compare to past ballad-esque songs Into Eternity has put out before like the masterful "Buried in Oblivion" and "Surrounding by Night" from their previous albums.
Even though up to this point my review has been fairly mixed, there's no denying the incredible musicianship here for you to salivate over. Stu Block in my opinion is one of the best vocalists in metal. The amount of vocal styles, all of which are done well, is immense. There's halford-esque power metal wails, your typical high and low death metal screams, a fusion of the two styles already mentioned, and his normal singing voice. Like with any new into eternity album, there comes usually a slew of new band members. The major change on
The Incurable Tragedy is the loss of founding member and drummer Jim Austin. When I first heard of the change I was skeptical if their new drummer, Steve Bolognese, could fill Jim's shoes, but he does so with relative ease. They have similar styles, but some of the drumming on
The Incurable Tragedy is incredibly innovative. It goes beyond the typical blast beat, double bass consumed drumming of most death metal outfits and really helps set the bar for other metal drummers.
The guitar work on
The Incurable Tragedy is somewhat of a letdown though. Tim Roth is a great guitarist no doubt about it, but with an album that has so much of an emphasis on the emotion felt by the songs, a lot of the soloing on display is pretty emotionless and forgettable unfortunately. At other times, you'll hear riffs, melodies, and progressions that, although very good, seemed to have been ripped straight from Into Eternity's back catalog of songs. A lot of the great acoustic/flamenco stuff really makes up for a lot of the regurgitated riffage, especially in the song "Time Immemorial" which also became one of the more standout tracks for me.
Overall
The Incurable Tragedy can be a bit messy at times but still a pretty enjoyable listening experience. Although just from a technical perspective the album is amazing just like everything else the band has done in the past, their songwriting has degenerated into a mishmash of more than a handful of subgenres that work way too inconsistently when paired together. Into Eternity's fusion sound has always worked great before, but with this release it just feels like most of the songs were rushed. This is by no means a bad album. Actually at times there are moments of greatness, but for every pro there is a con to
The Incurable Tragedy. At the very least Into Eternity fans will find some enjoyable songs to listen to, but with all of the other big metal releases of 2008,
The Incurable Tragedy has little lasting power.
Notable Tracks:
"The Incurable Tragedy I (September 21, 2006)"
"Time Immemorial"
"A Black Light Ending"
