Artist: Beyond The Black
Title: Beyond The Black
Genre: Metal
Release Date: 13th January 2023
Label: Nuclear Blast
Album Review
If you release a self-titled album, is usually means that you want to go big. So, how about BEYOND THE BLACK’s latest release? The album comes with ten tracks and a broader soundscape than fans might be used to. The opening track ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ clearly aims at Rock and Metal radio stations, a very catchy chorus, a dark but not too heavy Symphonic Metal soundscape with some string elements, balancing out the guitar riffing. ‘Reincarnation’ is a tricky one, some of the elements might remind you of ELUVEITIE’s Folk elements, but the arrangement of the whole thing is a different one. Growls and guitarwork are strong on this one, while the drums fail to push the song forward. ‘Free Me’ allows singer Jennifer to go big. The song is built around the lyrics, telling a story that starts slow with acoustic guitars, but leaves behind the ballade attitude to develop into a song that plays with various elements of harmony while the drums follow an unusual pattern, directing your attention away from the guitars. You might already know ‘Winter Is Coming’, for it was released as a single a while ago. This is almost a mainstream song, with Pop-prone elements and a catchy chorus, that will be great for the audience of a live concert.
The albums ballade seems to be ‘Wide Awake’, at least the opening part of this track that seems to be very constructed and somehow doesn’t fit. The acoustic opening gets you into a calm mood, when suddenly more instrumentation shows up, again the instruments focus on harmonies until it gets rather loud and heavy with an almost Rock prone attitude guitar-wise, somehow it seems that this song doesn’t know what it wants to be like. ‘Dancing In The Dark’ is the contrary. The drum patterns build up a huge amount of tension, that unfortunately leads over into a Metal-Pop mainstream track. ‘Raise Your Head’ finally shows that BEYOND THE BLACK is a band that has amazing guys on guitar, the riff is a really catchy one, the drums give the song a good structure and the vocals finally fit the bands attitude. ‘Not In Our Name’ comes with some interesting orchestral parts and some really cool growls that were missing in a lot of the songs on this album. ‘I remember Dying’ sees you off with some nice vocal parts and even elements with a big chorus, but somehow the Metal attitude is missing.
The band’s self-titled album partly leaves the band’s Metal attitude behind, directing the sound towards a more mainstream and commercial one. The band mixed so many different styles into the songs that it remains unclear what the band’s true sound is like. The advantage of all the mainstream arrangements and the dominating clear singing parts is, that the album invites the fans to sing and dance along.
Tracklist
01. Is There Anybody Out There?
02. Reincarnation
03. Free Me
04. Winter Is Coming
05. Into The Light
06. Wide Awake
07. Dancing In The Dark
08. Raise Your Head
09. Not In Our Name
10. I Remember Dying
Line-up
Jennifer Haben - Vocals
Chris Hermsdörfer - Guitar, Growls
Tobias Lodes - Guitar
Kai Tschierschky - Drums
Website
https://beyond-the-black.com/
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 5
Sound: 5
Total: 5 / 10
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