Beyond - Enter Transcendence

BEYOND - Enter Transcendence (IRON BONEHEAD - 7"EP 2012)

“What kind of lame crap it is?” I told myself after hearing first seconds of the opening song of this EP for the first time. But HOLD ON boy, you've been playing it at a wrong speed, you dump fuck. This is why it sounds so bad hah! After giving it a proper 45 RPM play, "Hidden Temple of Obscurity" (which is side A song) finally started to sound much, much better... Exactly as I expected, knowing Beyond from their excellent album "Fatal Power of Death". Always a problem with these vinyl shit hah... 

Now I can say that "Enter Transcendence" is a killer EP and a great, worthy piece of black wax from a band, which really deserved much more to achieve. I have no idea why Beyond got so little attention and what led to their abrupt split up. But, even though Beyond are dead, I decided to write a couple of words about “Enter...”. Just because this EP is great and belongs to my favourite death metal releases from Germany, just as "Fatal Power...", actually. 

Stylistically Beyond was in that very fast, chaotic, insanely vicious and morbid death metal niche, where personally I can find place such bands as Repugnant, Sadistic Intent, Degial, Verminous, Throneum, Vorum, Venenum or Excoriate. There is wrath, chaos, possessing, evil aura in these sounds... There's insane intensity and savage riffage and almost 80's Morbid Angel-esque style of death metal too. Beyond doesn't slow down for a moment even, they speed up like crazy and there's not much time to catch the breath. Add that very harsh production to it and the result is just sweet. Both songs really go the same chaotic path of morbidity, so obviously it can work very well for a 7"EP, but a full album would require a bit more from Beyond... But they showed their potential on "Fatal Power of Death" one year later. All in all, I can say that "Enter Transcendence" is a great EP, a good example that XXI century death metal still is full of rotten, fresh meat and far from boredom. 

Verdict: 80/100

PS. They went on to form OmegaVortex - check out this killer band!!!!