BEYOND HELL - The Sleeper Awakens CD
Dark Descent/Skeleton Plague Records
This band sounds like the bastard offspring of DEATH, OBITUARY and INCANTATION. Now if that sentence alone doesn't get your puss infested brain working overtime than I think you just need to move along. That's right nothing to see for you here because bands like BEYOND HELL are not part of some superficial "retro" movement. Stuff like this has been lurking in dark places for a while. The names of the players might change but the intensity and attention to detail has never left. This might only be the band's debut full length but one of the players on here is a devotee to everything extreme. I'm talking about this guy Elektrokutioner who plays drums on here. I've already reviewed one of his other bands, the horror thrash of TOMBSTONES and I like his Doom two piece act WOODENSTAKE. He's also in FATHER BEFOULED who I haven't gotten to yet as far as reviewing their latest release. This guy is also in alot more bands, too many to name here. As far as this one goes, it's a decent into the raw and disgusting realm of old school sounding Death Metal.
The Sleeper Awakens could be a long lost demo from 1989. First off the production is perfect as in old school sound and each performer jells equally. The guitar has that sick sounding crunch to the riffs and the soloing adds a crack of light into a world of pure abysmal darkness. Guitarist Tony P. is no Chuck Schuldiner nor is he trying to be which is a good thing. Elektrokutioner's drumming is REAL. I've said it before and I'll say again, I'm just fuckin sick of the trigger drum mania going on within newer Death Metal or just Metal in general. One of my best friends is a drummer in a Thrash band and he feels the same way. It's a fake sound which ruins the music. There's nothing fake about BEYOND HELL. Finally there's vocalist Supreme Sicko and his name fits his singing style.
Listening to this release, which also contains the band's And Evil Crept Through EP, I just can't help but find greatness in everything about it. I'm sure there are plenty of anal babies out there who can find faults as well as mock the whole concept of revisiting a sound so firmly rooted in the past. I cannot look at this as a revival thing because what BEYOND HELL is doing makes me wanna blast this till my stereo speakers explode. Some assholes will say that listening to The Sleeper Awakens will wanna make them shake the dust off of their past Death Metal collection and spin a few for old time's sake. To me that sounds stupid because BEYOND HELL could just as easily sit next to any of those bands.
Label: http://www.darkdescent.net/
Label: http://www.skeletonplaguerecords.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/beyondhellmusic
Official: http://beyondhellmusic.blogspot.com/
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