An Angel's Requiem

Look at what Genre I listed this as – no, that is not a mistake, I just could not come up with any other way to categorize this. Far Beyond is a one-man band from Germany on the new Source of Deluge label, and this is their (or rather his) debut CD. Sometimes you run across a band in one subgenre, and you can tell they'd be much better off in another. Far Beyond are such a band. As this Guardian guy is trying so hard to be Black Metal he hasn't noticed he's really a Power Metal band.

Everything on this album – the riffs, the keys, the production, the double-kick drum tempos – screams Power Metal. And then the harsh raspy vocals come in. I kept shaking my head over this as it played, wondering what this guy was thinking. Now the music here is pretty good – and in places better than that, but it's melodic Power Metal music with nothing Black about any of it except for the raspy vocals – and that isn't enough to make something BM. If he would just throw up his hands and get a melodic singer for the vocals, then Far Beyond would be a pretty cool band in the Nocturnal Rites/Black Abyss/Domine school of metal. But as it is, what we have here is a pretty good Power Metal album with these distracting rasps all over it. Word of advice to Guardian – get a real singer and just go with it, Black Metal just ain't your true calling.