Review by Yener on May 9, 2019.

This is a release which completely caught me off guard, time wise. I mean the band had just released the fantastic Necrobreed just a year before, so it was surely not enough time for a new full-length album. But an EP? Hell, I don’t imagine a lot of us will say no to that.

I think it was also a smart choice on Benighted’s part, to do a test EP before their new full length. A sort of test of the waters, because something that not perhaps everyone will be aware of is that Benighted have actually lost their primary guitar player and song writer, Olivier Gabriel. Not only was he a founding member of the band, but the riffs he contributed were enormous. So, it will be interesting to see what current guitar player Emmanuel Dalle can bring to the table, along with Olivier’s replacement, Fabien Desgardins. 

One very positive addition to the band is new drummer Kevin Paradis. I’ve been following this guy closely for years on YouTube and he absolutely crushes. While it was a bit sad to see Romain Goulon disband due to health reasons, I don’t think Benighted could have found a better replacement than Kevin. Pierre Arnoux is on bass duties, and Julien is of course on vocals.

“Teeth and Hatred” kicks off this EP, and there’s no mistaking that this is Benighted. A little different than what we are used to perhaps, but still Benighted. While the song has some interesting sections (and a very nice intro), the riffs just aren’t there like they used to be. Kevin does a fantastic job working his way around the kit, especially during the verses. The song moves forward with conviction, but honestly, this EP could have had a better start than this. But thankfully things pick up very quickly with the arrival of “Martyr” - an absolute screamer of a track. Julien lets loose on his vocals and let’s get something straight - there is no other death metal vocalist out there that can touch this guy in my opinion. He’s the Swiss army knife of metal vocalists. Screams, squeals, gutturals, you name it, the guy can do it. And as always, he changes up his style on the fly like it were nothing, usually during the same verse. The drum work is outstanding, Kevin is left free to just let it rip, and he doesn’t hold back; some intense drumming throughout, with the guitars roaring, possessed, behind him. This is what Benighted do best. 

The final original piece of music on this EP is titled “Dogs Always Bite Harder than Their Master”, which despite the ridiculous title, has quite a different vibe than the rest of the EP. The band go into infrequently uncharted territories, relying more on atmosphere than brutality. The song has many sections so it’s not just an atmospheric track, but those sections could have been arranged better in my opinion. In its current form, the track seems to be a bit all over the place, and has a problem maintaining a natural flow to the music. 

The rest of this EP is not just filler like a lot of another EP’s out there. A cover of “Slaughter of the Soul” originally by At the Gates, of course, is present, and it’s done really well. Benighted has always enjoyed doing covers and paying homage to artists that they like, and I really enjoy that about them. So far, every cover they’ve ever done, they’ve made it their own somehow, and elevated the originals. This is no different, it’s extremely well done. We are then greeted with six assorted live tracks, and while I’m not really a fan of live records for the most part, Benighted are quite enjoyable to listen to live, even when it’s just audio. They’re a band I would love to see live and wouldn’t miss the opportunity, however, sitting at home listening to their live recordings isn’t really my cup of tea, even though they’re enjoyable enough.

Overall, I’m happy that they released this EP. It’s strange hearing them without Olivier, but the remaining guys have done a fine job. “Martyr” is a really fantastic song, though not quite sold on the other two originals on here. This definitely has potential - I guess we’ll just have to wait and see where they take the band next. But wherever that may be, I’ll be there with sharp ears and a notepad.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by TheOneNeverSeen on January 1, 2024.

As much as I like and enjoy DragonForce's previous works (both with Theart and Hudson), this album was a huge disappointment.

Deceived by a solid intro and a pretty energetic opening song "Ashes of the Dawn" with a catchy melody, I had high expectations of this album. However, the rest of the tracks turned out to be extremely boring and redundant in the sense of nearly everything, making "Reaching into Infinity" not only the worst DragonForce album up to date, but also one of the worst power metal albums I have listened to.

The first thing that extremely lacks diversity in this album is song structure. Music-wise, most songs simply follow the standard DragonForce pattern – an acoustic guitar/keyboard/drum intro (optional), mad guitar accompanied by furious drumming, first verse, chorus, short guitar solo, second verse, chorus, 2-minute guitar solo that tries insanely hard to impress you with its speed rather than with its beauty (with almost unchanged drumming in the background), chorus (sometimes with guitars being replaced by a synth/acoustic guitar for a bit), furious outro. It's not a great problem in and of itself, but in this particular album there are simply no songs where all the aforementioned elements sound good (like in "Soldiers of the Wasteland" or "Cry for Eternity"). In other words, if the intro is good, the main riff is weak, if the main riff is fine, the boredom of the solo will outweigh it and so on. This album makes it abundantly clear that DragonForce fails miserably to keep up with the epicness of their previous works, but is still reluctant (or afraid?) to change their style even a little bit. The same thing can be said about rhyme and meter patterns. For example, chorus of "Judgement Day" and first verse and chorus of "Astral Empire" are extremely similar in that sense. What was the problem to write less songs, but make each of them more unique so that the listener can never mix one song with another (like the band did on "Inhuman Rampage" or "The Power Within")?

Lyric-wise, "Reaching into Infinity" is absolute trash. I know lyrics have never been a praised element of DragonForce's music, even its fans would agree with that, but the redundancy of lyrics in this album is absolutely stunning. After having read a few lines from lyrics of each song, I'm absolutely sick of all these "fire", "fly away", "fear", "fight", "free", "time to [verb]", "march", "we will [verb]", "die", "power", "stand", "war", "world", etc. The only bands this album is comparable with in terms of redundancy of its lyrics are black metal bands like Dark Funeral that have "Satan's demons are smeared in blood" and "smeared in angel's blood" in the same verse. The only songs of the album that stand out from the rest (despite not being unique in any way) are "Curse of Darkness" and "Silence" that focus on sadder lyrical themes. Again, if you take other works of DragonForce, like "Inhuman Rampage", the lyrics are way more interesting there (just compare the average line length of the two albums). The "sad" song on that album, "Trail of Broken Hearts", is also way more beautiful (both music-wise and lyric-wise) than the aforementioned sad songs of "Reaching into Infinity". Hudson's vocals are decent as always, but fail to make the overall album more enjoyable (especially because of how uniform what he sings is).

The worst thing about this album is probably its length. Even for DragonForce, the average song length of which (at least in case of the first 3 albums) is around 6 minutes it's way too long. I don't know why, but DragonForce seem to have tried their best to make "Reaching into Infinity" longer (perhaps, to make the album title symbolic?). All the aforementioned problems would be less significant and irritating if the album lasted less, but the band seems to be trying to bore the hell out of you, even after the quintessence of boredom is reached at "The Edge of the World", an 11-minute long song with a fine intro and chorus that are completely ruined by a tremendously long solo with ridiculous growling in the middle of the song.

Bonus tracks don't change the situation much, although I have to admit that seeing a Death song title in the tracklist was surprising. In fact, I do give the band credit for such an unusual pick and a good-sounding cover (never thought power metal sound would fit a Death song). The other two tracks, unfortunately, are just as boring as the rest of the album, which is sad considering DragonForce does have albums with decent bonus tracks ("Maximum Overload", for example).

In conclusion, this is a pretty weak album that tries to incorporate the previously used tools in its sound, but fails to impress the listener with remarkable melodies and simply can't compare with the band's previous works for multiple reasons. Definitely not recommended to people unfamiliar with the band or the genre, better listen to actually cool albums like the first 4 works of DragonForce.

Highlights: "Reaching into Infinity", "Ashes of the Dawn"

Rating: 3 out of 10