Infinite Tales is a sextet of ambiguously young Ukrainians attempting to mash-up the sounds of their heroes into something cohesive. When first reading about them, I thought they would go one of two ways: brilliance or extreme mediocrity. In all of their interviews I read, they named-drop more than Tareq and Michaele Salahi trying to get into a White House party. Here are a few of their admitted influences: Deadlock, Nightwish, The Agonist, Protest the Hero, Dream Theater, Amaran, In Flames, Arch Enemy, Avenged Sevenfold, and Mors Principum Est. If I listed every band they named from five interviews, it would read like graffiti from an old high school desk. Imagine my astonished face as each song on Only the Beginning relentlessly echoes those bands.

Led by Glorf – (I. Dovgoteles), the band’s founder, lead guitarist, and primary song-writer, Infinite Tales plays from a formula. They assume the identity of a death metal band, but in the same way the Jonas Brothers masquerades as a rock band. Their story about how they were formed reads like it was an organic, experimental process, but the band’s sound leads me to believe it was a calculated and contrived effort to land a record deal and tour Europe. There are rough vocals by Zolik (Z. Forkosh) and operatic female vocals by Kiwi (V. Revko). Death metal guitar hooks outline each song and riffs from nearly every other heavy music genera fill in the rest.

As an album, each song in Only the Beginning is consistent. I’ll give them that. But the album is consistent with what I’ve stereotyped in my mind as mainstream European pop death metal. A keyboard-heavy “Intro” opens the album feigning seriousness. “Amoxicillin…extermination” is really the album’s opener and is probably the best song, which is sad. They pour everything into “Amoxicillin…extermination” including some Van Halen-style tapping and all of that only weighs down the song’s potential.

“Running Away” follows “Amoxicillin…extermination” and reinforces their not-so-secret sauce. “Point of No Return” lives up to its name as band is on its way down the double-beaten path. “No War for this Century” is an anti-war, platitude-laden, trope. This is so not death metal. By the time I got to the middle of “Dethtale” and suffered through the vocal Auto-Tune bridge, I lost all hope for living, which, I suppose, is a way to make it death metal. “Little More Anger” is a song with lot of potential ruined by distracting drum changes and simpleton lyrics. The rest of the album follows the same kitchen sink formula.

The biggest detractor to Infinite Tales, aside from lack of originality, is their inability to make the songs fit their vocalist, Kiwi, resulting in the same operatic vocal-driven Euro pop metal we’ve heard for more than two decades. Her voice is so pure and clean, it sounds like she’s retrofitted rather than part of the band. Great song-writers know how to write songs to fit certain vocals and it doesn’t happen once on Only the Beginning. Better song writing could improve her ability to mesh with the music. Even though she screams periodically throughout the album, it still doesn’t make her metal. Some people can’t sing metal and we call them pop stars, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

One final thing bugging me about Only the Beginning are the lyrics. While I understand Infinite Tales are not native English speakers, I don’t think anything was lost in the translation based on the mediocre quality of the music itself. The lyrics are hardly poetic and overtly preachy as if written by a child. What this does to their music overall is underscore the unoriginality of the compositions. Songs like “The Warehouse Will Be Your Tomb, Chief” and “Bloodyfield” are no more thought-provoking than their titles. Even if the lyrics weren’t so clichéd, “Amoxicillin…extermination” was enough soap-boxing for the whole album. I don’t need brow-beating when I’m headbanging. Somebody’s going to lose an eye.

One cool thing I have to mention about the band is the bass player’s resemblance to Neil Patrick Harris circa Doogie Houser. I think Imtrid has a future on a sequel to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Musically, I find it hard to know if Infinite Tales is talented or not. They are gifted imitators. However, shelf-life of Only the Beginning is probably one or two listens. We’re already saturated with good musicians copycatting. Infinite Tales would do well to start over from scratch, stop pretending to be like all their idols, and blaze their own path.

1.5/5