Beyond Hell - 'The Sleeper Awakens'

Old school, raw, death metal with a great guitar sound.

Immediately, Beyond Hell are obviously treading old school death metal (OSDM) territory with their debut full-length album, The Sleeper Awakens. Death metal of the raw, Swedish variety comes to mind with a huge, buzz saw sound to the guitars similar to classic releases in the style. Beyond Hell are also playing with a doom- laden vibe, not usually found within the current revival of OSDM, that brings to mind Scream Bloody Gore by Death, just about anything by Hellhammer, and the dread epitomized by the band’s fascination with H.P. Lovecraft.

The formula works very well as Beyond Hell perfectly nail the genre aesthetics and deliver a crushing album. The key to the album’s success is the thick guitar sound; exceptionally heavy with great weight. The tempo is generally slow to mid- paced, and the vocals have an old school, “death grunt” feel to them. For purposes of nostalgia and homage, Beyond Hell succeed in capturing the look and sound of the era.

However, there are a few problems with The Sleeper Awakens, namely the rather shoddy musicianship and some poor choices in guitar direction. Sloppy musicianship, of course, in this genre is just fine, as long as the band sticks to just crushing the listener with riffs. Beyond Hell, however, choose to add some really unnecessary flourishes to the guitar with even an arpeggio or two, particularly early in the album. Though sparse, the musicianship is quite poor in these moments, and the music tends to weakly trail off before launching into the next riff. Luckily, these moments are not emphasized, though, but do contribute to some uneven songwriting.

The Sleeper Awakens is a good example of old school death metal, albeit with a few weak points, and has found a slightly different niche within OSDM. Recommended.

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