Review of the Great Second Studio Album "Dead or Dreaming" by Canadian Band Into Eternity

Into Eternity is a melodic metal band with death metal style vocals from the city of Regina in Canada. Yes, there is heavy metal in Canada and when it is good, it is VERY good! Into Eternity’s second studio album called Dead or Dreaming was released in 2001 and has both very melodic vocals and death metal style vocals by guitarist and lead vocalist Tim Roth. I’ll go even so far to say that this album is one of the best albums made in 2001.

The style of this album can be classified as melodic progressive thrash with rough vocals. People that work in the music industry and fans will classify this album the way that they want to but regardless of that, the songs on this album are of high quality.

Absolution of the Soul is the first song that I heard from these guys and I just fell in love with it! The song is about someone that is suffering so much that for him, there is no tomorrow. He wants the suffering to be alleviated in whatever way it is possible. The vocal melody continues in to the song Distant Pale Future after a great bass part. The song is about someone that realizes that life has failed them. They have no idea of what their destiny is or should be. The melodies in this song can be described as exotic and at the same time, they have a classical feel to them. The speed of the lead guitar work is impressive too. It is accurate to say that the first three songs including Shallow are the strongest in this album.

Tim Roth does some pretty passionate singing in this opening track of this 2001 album. When there is so much sorrow in life, sometimes we feel hopeless, feeling that there is no tomorrow but there will be another day for us to take advantage of.

Shallow starts with some acoustic guitar before getting heavy. The song is about a person having disillusioned thoughts and being a pathological liar. The pre-chorus and Tim Roth’s uttering of the word “shallow” are the best part of this song. He also says the word shallow while growling. I don’t even want to listen to Chris Barnes after hearing vocals like this. The acoustic part followed by the repetition of the pre-chorus sounds like an early version of the band In Flames. Then the song ends with a very long uttering of the word shallow as Tim Roth shows his vocal range without any overexertion.

Elysium Dream is a song about a person that feels like there is no point to his life. He feels that everyone is a bad situation and that the only way out of this coldness, deafening silence, and misery is the end of life. However the beginning of that song has an interesting start because of the exotic acoustic guitar sound. Canadians have become an interesting bunch of people using that twin guitar sound. The next song called Selling God is actually more positive because it encourages others to follow in the footsteps of GOD and HE is the only one who can restore balance to our lives and make us whole. Those that have lost direction really haven’t lost their life but they were in disarray before their life was saved.

"Cyber Messiah" is a song about someone that has been worshiping for seven days and they cannot sleep. They seem to have no vision and it seems that they are praying to a false god. GOD is very much real but for those of you that may be skeptical or for those of you that don’t follow organized religion, you may want to skip this song. Those that worship idols really are not following Christianity as the song tries to point out. There are absolutely no bad songs in this album by one of Canada’s best heavy metal bands.

After Annihilator, Into Eternity is one of the best metal bands to come from Canada along with Kittie. There is not often that this writer gives albums a perfect score but anything less than that would not be good enough for this one.