Author: Primož Novak
Artist: Beyond Creation
Label: Season Of Mist
Release: year_month
Length: 46:23
Rating: 4.5/5
Back in 2011, Canadian outfit Beyond Creation put everyone on notice that Canada was becoming a leading force in technical death metal. Luckily, Beyond Creation turned out not to be a »one album wonder« band. Three years later they came back with a follow-up that aims to confirm their agenda and their innovation in the field of extreme metal, which is getting more oversaturated by the day.
With their debut »The Aura«, Beyond Creation proved they could build on the Obscura recipe, and from the American scene only The Faceless can really compete with them. So did they pull it off a second time?
With the first two tracks, Elusive Reverence and Sous La Lueur De l’Empereur, Beyond Creation confirm their brutal and complex style. But with the third track, the title song, the band brings in a calmer section that keeps building throughout, underlining a progressive approach that’s not easy to find on the scene these days. The riffs are fast and complex, the rhythms are dynamic, the drumming is suitably quick, and the vocals, with their depth, hammer home the brutality of the whole thing, which is helped along by the low-tuned guitars. Among the standout instruments, of course, is Dominic Lapointe’s fretless bass. Lapointe doesn’t just contribute outstanding bass lines, you can also hear his virtuoso solo spots, which really isn’t an everyday thing in metal. That doesn’t mean the other instruments are pushed into the background, though. Guitarists Simon Girard and Kévin Chartré string together a nice number of virtuoso solos across the whole album, exactly what suits the band’s style. The drumming is likewise suitably fast and stylistically on point.
Compared with the debut, the album also shows a small, natural and logical step forward. With their eight-string guitars, Beyond Creation show off their hard-hitting, dark side, while the calmer passages and the occasional jazz bit show their versatility. Their knowledge of jazz rhythms helps Beyond Creation stand out today and keeps them from being predictable like other technical death metal bands, which are full of neoclassical solos and rapid-fire drums.
Earthborn Revolution also boasts good production. Across its 46 minutes you can hear that the record is properly polished, with no feeling that it was rushed or thrown together. The sound is clear too, and no instrument gets buried in the background.
With their second album, Beyond Creation confirm they’re not about to coast on the glory of a single record. Earthborn Revolution cements the band’s style while proving once again that extreme music has no limits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aM8XoWZeq8
Lineup
– Simon Girard – vocals, guitar
– Kevin Chartré – guitar
– Dominic ‘Forest’ Lapointe – bass
– Philippe Boucher – drums
Production
Christian Donaldson
Tracklist
- Elusive Reverence
- Sous La Lueur De L’empereur
- Earthborn Evolution
- The Great Revelation
- Neurotical Transmissions
- Abstrait Dialog
- The Axiom
- L’exorde
- Theatrical Delirium
- Fundamental Process
