Monday, August 19, 2013

Beyond - Fatal Power of Death

Beyond
Fatal Power of Death
2013 Iron Bonehead Productions / Necroshrine Records
Germany's Beyond have a definite contender for best album of the year with "Fatal Power of Death." Besides "Unending Degradation" by Krypts it's the best thing I've heard so far in 2013.  Beyond vomit forth an impressive wall of sound, and time and again I hear them compared to Necrovore.  I have to admit that I do hear a lot of similarities in both bands' controlled chaos.  I think there's a lot more blasting on the drums, possibly an influence from the Ross Bay style cult sound of Blasphemy.  The album is an all-out attack at full, or close to full speed, with a sound that practically serves as a new definition of what "death metal" is.  Other comparisons I've been seeing reference Autopsy, Immolation, Napalm Death and Incantation.  Personally, I hear none of those.  This isn't sewer-sludge style, nor death metal-tinged grindcore.  It's also not as suffocatingly claustrophobic as Incantation or brutally technical like Immolation.  But enough about what "Fatal Power of Death" isn't.  Let's focus instead on what it is:  cavernous, massive ungodly metal of death.  Pure of sound and anything but simple.  Anyone who says that death metal has become stagnant just isn't paying attention.  Definitely one of those bands that will have true fans of death metal asking, "Where have you been all my life?"

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