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From Beyond Premiere “The Fall to Earth” from The Band From Beyond

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on March 2nd, 2018 by JJ Koczan

from beyond

Safe to say that the debut full-length from Austin, Texas, heavy rockers From Beyond has been a while in the making. Six years at least. The four-piece, who signed to Candlelight/Spinefarm last summer with word of getting the album out in the Fall, have set an April 20 release for what’s been dubbed The Band From Beyond with a clever sense of deceptiveness in that they are both actually called From Beyond and throughout the album they show an affinity for classic horror and sci-fi, and so the title works on that level as well, like some grainy black and white horror flick you end up watching in the middle of the night on a tube television during your formative years after everyone else has gone to bed, forever warping your young mind and REM patterns as you fall asleep on the couch with the flashing lights and screams peppering their way into your subconscious.

By the way, any band that starts calling out Coffin Joe titles — see “At Midnght” — is cool by me.

All told, The Band From Beyond teems with vibrancy at a vinyl-ready 42-minutes and 14 tracks, and while the band has put an obvious focus on getting the most out of individual songs — there are times where the record reads like a choose-your-adventure book as it moves from track to track, especially early on through direct-standout cuts like “The Fall to Earth,” “Blooming Sun” and “The Slip.” But intro pieces like “11:59,” which precedes the particularly Uncle Acidic (though one also gets shades of fellow Texans From Beyond The Band From BeyondVenomous Maximus) “At Midnight,” the opening “Invocation” that leads into “The Fall to Earth,” the acoustic “White Marble” ahead of the pre-outro finale “Black Mirror” — as well, of course, as the JohnCarpenter-horror-cinema synth that follows and rounds out on “Synthetic Skin Pt. 1,” mirroring the earlier “The Color into Space,” which complements and flows into “The Color out of Space, — and so on, serve a critical function in not only tying together with whichever cut they happen to lead into or out of, but also adding complexity to the some more straightforward arrangements from Rob (guitar, vocals, synth), Dave (guitar), Brooks (bass, vocals, synth) and Anthony (drums, vocals) and giving The Band From Beyond a more resonant full-album flow.

As the record careens through the Queens of the Stone Age-plus-synth-style “The Slip” or the later “Machine Gun,” which adds gang shouts to the mix, From Beyond‘s intentions toward sonic individualism become all the more palpable, and though they again seem to reference Uncle Acid on “Blooming Sun” (the repeated lyric “I’ll cut you down” arrives amid further QOTSA elements), taken in context of the larger riffing of “The Color out of Space,” the Nine Inch Nails-with-better-melody-style brooding early on “Lost Way” that leads to a largesse of chug and synth drama that foreshadows some of the the lumbering roll and Alice in Chainsian low-in-the-mouth vocals of “Black Mirror” later on, the album is varied through straightforward hooks like that of the desert rocking “Laura Palmer” but no less memorable or based around quality songcraft in “The Slip” or “The Fall to Earth,” which culls together various impulses between grunge, heavy rock and progressive doom in order to make the first of The Band From Beyond‘s crater-worthy impacts.

Though arrangements prove complex and diverse throughout as From Beyond work in a range of moods, styles and tempos, ultimately their debut album holds itself together with a surprising fluidity considering the amount of ground actually being covered. It’s hard to get a full sense of that in one track, whether it’s the melancholy heft that emerges in “Lost Way” or the pure thrust of “Machine Gun” or the flourish that the interludes bring to the surrounding material. I’m thrilled today to be able to host the premiere of “The Fall to Earth” ahead of the album’s release in April, and you’ll find the track below, followed by a quote from the band and more info from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

From Beyond on “The Fall to Earth”:

I wrote “The Fall to Earth” on keys, with what was originally just the progression, and then the melody. I loved the way it felt to play, but when I plugged it into my Juno-106, it turned into something more than I could have expected. I wanted this song to be heavier than gravity. I think we achieved that in spades.

From Beyond are otherworldly and ominous. The music on their Candlelight debut lives up to the implications of the Texas band’s moniker. Sonically, the quartet-Rob [guitars, vocals, synthesizers], Dave [guitar, effects], Brooks [bass, synthesizers, vocals], and Anthony [drums, vocals]-gracefully resemble an orchestra of Kyuss, Soundgarden, and Rush, as if they were conducted by John Carpenter.

The band will release its full-length debut The Band From Beyond on April 20 via Candlelight Records.

On their debut, From Beyond wanted to do something that was steeped in psychedelic horror. They did so by fusing movie elements from the late ’60s and early ’70s. “Films like Simon King of the Witches, Psychomania, and the work of Coffin Joe come to mind. At the same time, I love the scores for Escape from New York and Halloween. I got really into that sparse and minimal approach to synthesis. I wanted to bring those elements to music inspired by Queens of the Stone Age, Sleep, and the writing of H.P. Lovecraft,” frontman Rob McCarthy explains.

In order to capture that combination, the band hunkered down in an Austin, Texas studio with The Sword bassist Bryan Richie in the producer’s chair. Over the course of seven days, they tracked the 14 songs comprising The Band From Beyond, utilizing everything from guitars to vintage analog synths and mellotron.

THE BAND FROM BEYOND TRACK LISTING:
1. Invocation
2. The Fall to Earth
3. Blooming Sun
4. The Slip
5. Lost Way
6. The Color Into Space
7. The Color Out of Space
8. 11:59
9. At Midnight
10. Laura
11. Machine Gun
12. White Marble
13. Black Mirror
14. Synthetic Skin Pt. 1

The Band From Beyond preorders

From Beyond on Thee Faceboks

From Beyond on Bandcamp

Spinefarm Records on The Facebooks

Spinefarm Records on Twitter

Spinefarm Records website

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