Beyond Twilight - The Devil's Hall Of Fame
Massacre Records
Cinematic? & Progressive Metal
8 songs (45'50)
Release year: 2001
Beyond Twilight, Massacre Records
Reviewed by Marc

The only thing I knew about Beyond Twilight when I put the CD in my player, was that they are a Scandinavian prog band that got good reviews in some mags. After a short while I began to wonder why...

The album starts with the best way to get a reviewer in a bad mood, an annoying intro more than one minute long complete with boring computer-generated voice and not even on its own track (you're supposed to listen to it everytime). After that I had a little moment of hope as it sounded a bit like Ayreon's masterpiece "Flight Of The Migrator" but I quickly understood they don't have the talent of that band.

The keyboards are often annoying and repetitive and the singer is so in love with his own voice that he's trying to do too much for his abilities, holding notes forever and so on. I'll take the song Shadowland as an example of what is wrong with that album. It starts with a joyful little melody continues with a dark atmospheric part and then it's a cheesy cliché ballad and the singer even manages to sing some of it with a Brian Adams-like voice (your girlfriend is gonna love it ;). It simply tries to go in every direction at the same time. And it's the same with almost all the songs and after a nice passage of the title song The Devil's Hall Of Fame I find myself laughing out loud at the ridiculous choir that wastes the whole song.

One could say that this patchwork music is justified by the concept of the album: it's the story of a man using a computer to hack into his own mind and finding disconnected parts of his own spirit. He has to deal with events of his life, his faith and philosophical questions and so on. It could have been a nice of concept if it had been done right as in the end the resulting music in more important than the idea.

One last thing: the production. It's quite a professional job except for the abuse of effects like echo/reverb.

There are some nice things lost in the middle of this progressive (and cinematic, whatever that means) album and the most die-hard prog fans may like it but I advise listening before buying.

Killing Songs :
"Perfect Dark" is not too bad
Marc quoted 60 / 100
Other albums by Beyond Twilight that we have reviewed:
Beyond Twilight - For The Love Of Art And The Making reviewed by Marty and quoted 92 / 100
Beyond Twilight - Section X reviewed by Ben and quoted 88 / 100
5 readers voted
Average:
 78
Your quote was: 100.
Change your vote

There are no replies yet to this review
Be the first one to post a reply!