Beyond Creation — Earthborn Evolution

Beyond Creation are part of a crop of classically informed technical death metal bands that I've noticed emerging in the last few years, sounding most similar perhaps to Obscura (the band, not the Gorguts album).  The emphasis of their music is on tasteful and musical use of technicality, allowing intelligent theory based passages and melodic jazz fusion style guitar playing to blend comfortably with more typical tremolo and pinch harmonic dominated death metal riffing styles.  This is their second album, "Earthborn Evolution".

I was a huge fan of this style of music when I was younger, counting Cynic, Death and Atheist among my favorite bands.  I've enjoyed Obscura and Necrophagist in recent years, but in truth most 'progressive' metal comes off as overdone, insincere, and truly gratuitous.  Beyond Creation isn't raw or stripped down enough to get anything more than an eye roll from those truly cynical of technical music, but to my ears, it sounds like their songs are written from an emotional place, and provide plenty of memorable moments and melodies.  Compared to Season of Mist labelmates Exivious, who are equally impressive in the technical sense, Beyond Creation is significantly less sterile and detached.

The idea of consistently melodic death metal, with major key sweeps and harmonies, that still manages to be brutal enough to impel its listeners to headbanging, has long been an elusive one.  It was undoubtedly achieved by At the Gates in 1992, with their anguished masterpiece "With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness", but with the ocean of watered down bands that had amassed by the late 90's, and the ever more commercial sounding newer releases of In Flames and Soilwork, it's not hard to see how 'melo-death' might have gotten a bad name.  The obligatory soaring chorus lines began to outshine the guitar work in terms of importance.

I am happy to say this album strikes the above balance quite well, never sounding sappy, cheesy or obvious.  It could be called 'melo-death', but sounds nothing like At the Gates, and could be said to utilize different methods of integrating melody into death metal.  The dark folk progressions at the end of "Neurotical Transmissions" could only be compared to Opeth, and it says a lot that one hardly notices when the band moves from balls out metal to soulful soloing over a hushed backdrop.  As much as I like Between the Buried and Me, they were never able to make opposing extremes sound so much like the same thing.

The melodies are ethereal, vaguely melancholic fare, inspired mostly by Scandinavian black and viking metal, as well as classical music.  In addition to the bands I've mentioned, I'd bet the guitarist here is familiar with brainy modern black metal like Krallice and Deathspell Omega, which explore the finer gradations of unconventional, dissonant harmony.  The vocals, too, are the mournful mid-range howl I've often heard from that part of the world, not dissimilar to the vocals from Obscura.

Any fan of complex fretless bass work in metal will immediately notice Dominic Lapointe, who delivers a lead bass performance on the level of Atheist's Tony Choy or Steve Digiorgio on Death's "Individual Thought Patterns".  Thanks to the clear sound, he doesn't have to 'pop' every single note aggressively just to be heard; his performance breathes with nuance and dynamic range.  He's given solos and leads on numerous occasions, emotively cascading up and down arpeggi with the best of sweeping guitarists.

The gorgeous breakdown "Theatrical Delirium" is exactly what makes this band great; the taste and subtlety with which they hit a chord, then hang back and let it soak in, could rival any post rock band.  One could hear this passage and have no idea it came from a metal album, and yet the death metal is never far away.

I can't say enough good things about the way this album is produced.  I thank the non-existent higher power that the loudness wars have ended, and dynamics have returned to metal recordings.  You'll have to turn the volume knob up for this to sound heavy, but at loud volumes, it certainly does, and induces none of the ear fatigue of mid 2000's metal albums.  Rather than hurting your ears, it invites you to turn it up, and be surrounded by it.  The drums, in particular, sound crisp and perfect.

This album is incredibly listenable from straight to finish, lacking the relentless/monotonous quality many have maligned the death metal genre for.  I can't imagine any fan of jazz fusion really being able to sustain any kind of cynicism for metal after hearing this album, and anyone who's enjoyed bands like Obscura or Necrophagist in recent years should feel right at home listening to this (and realistically, probably already knows this band).  It will certainly have too much melody and 'prog' for some listeners of metal, but I feel certain this band is one of the few bringing this style of music to the heights I've always known it was capable of reaching, approaching it with sincerity, taste and intensity.