Canadian progressive death metal veterans Into Eternity are in the final stages of completing their long-anticipated seventh studio album, with just a few bass tracks and vocals left to record. In a new interview with The Metal Voice, founding guitarist and backing vocalist Tim Roth and vocalist Stu Block (also known for his tenure with Iced Earth) opened up about the record’s progress and the musical direction fans can expect.
Roth revealed that the album has been in the works for several years and is entirely self-financed, marking a significant shift for a band that’s previously worked with M-Theory Audio: "Well, all of our albums recently, we've all worked with [the label] M-Theory Audio.
"I don't know what we're gonna do with this new album. We're self-financing the new album. It's been a long process; this has been going on for years now, really. All we have left is four songs for bass. All my guitars, drums, everything is all done. Basically, yeah, there's not much left. Stu's vocals will be the last thing here. So, yeah, 10 new songs. There may be 12 songs, 'cause we have a couple bonus songs as well. But, yeah, the album's almost done, pretty much."
Describing the sonic direction of the new material, Roth promised a signature blend of aggressive and melodic elements: "Yeah, it's gonna be all the heavy groove riffs, some, of course, tremolo picking riffs, a lot of acoustic stuff, amazing progressive drumming, off-time signatures, clean vocals, death vocals, fast soloing, double bass, and catchy courses. All 10 songs all have a very catchy chorus. Every single song will be catchy — as far as what I consider catchy. And this is our seventh album, so people will just have to trust us on this one… But, yeah, the new album is definitely on the way here."
Block echoed that sentiment, highlighting the band's creative freedom: "The music breathes really good too. It's exactly what you would expect from Into Eternity, really. And the cool thing about Into Eternity, and I've talked to Tim about this before, and the whole band about this, is we can do whatever the heck we wanna do — to a certain extent. But we have a lot of rein to switch it up and do different things and explore different avenues and stuff. So I think it's gonna be really cool."
Block originally left Into Eternity in 2013 to go join Iced Earth. Block managed to get two records with Iced Earth out before Jon Schaffer went and tanked the entire band. Block was replaced by vocalist Amanda Kiernan upon leaving, and Into Eternity released their first album in 10 years called The Sirens in 2018. The new Into Eternity record will be the band's first since The Incurable Tragedy in 2008.
