How do you kick off a discography and make a lasting impression on your audience? Romeo decides that the best way is to segue in from darkness with some powerful synths and noodly guitar. And if I'm quite honest... he doesn't really go far enough. There's so much more that could've been done with "Into the Dementia" than got done, but I'm sure a lot of the problem is Romeo's really watery guitar sound. Just doesn't go the full nine yards and is easily one of their worst intro / interlude tracks.
Now when "The Raging Season" kicks in, that's when things really start to get going. The riff hits, pulls back, hits again, and then starts thromping around vigorously, and it's pretty good, but it reminds me of "Evolution (The Grand Design)" from V: The New Mythology Suite, which is a much better song and executes the same general riff idea but better than this one does. Like Knick said, Pinnella is just straight up a pianist in this song, and it's pretty cool (although you can barely hear him, but the production as a whole is trash on this album anyway so whatever).
Man, it's so easy, given that this is Symphony X after all, to expect Allen's power to hit you across the face when the verses come up, but instead we're treated to a Rod Tyler who is... well, he's not really that bad, but his voice is just not strong at all. He sounds very whiny, the distortion on his vocals doesn't really sound natural, it just sounds Jersey, and he clearly can't really keep up with Romeo's songwriting. He does a pretty solid job throughout most of the song, but when the bridge comes around he struggles big time.
The verses in this song are very solid, classic Symphony X constructions and are executed fairly well. The pre-chorus is actually very strong, and I could've seen a version of this song where that was the chorus itself. Unfortunately it isn't, and the chorus we're given is honestly a weak point in the song. Not bad, but too much theater without much substance. The choir vocals here are really very much Queen, but bootleg Queen, and I don't really like Queen much to begin with, so maybe that's a positive? Once we hit The Divine Wings of Tragedy, the band will have learned how to make that a true part of their iconic song, but it just really doesn't excel here. It's interesting, but there are even other songs on this album that use it better.
The bridge is fine but kinda pointless. Love the piano there, but Rod is really having a hard time. The solo completely shifts the song's vibe, and Romeo and Miller throw in some noodling in there. The second half of the solo has a great, heavy underlying riff that I dig though, so that's cool. And the outro... well, they had to throw in something else into the pot, didn't they?
As a whole, this two tracks work decently well at introducing Symphony X into the world. Decently as in, actually not very well, but they're a decent listen all the same. But you wouldn't necessarily feel like returning to them very often, if at all, outside of a full album listen. Subpar intro, average song.