EP Review: Beyond Grace - Welcome To The New Dark Ages
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
From the opening eerie beginnings, you can sense that something is brewing, the drums are rattling, the strings are being tampered with and then the deathly grunting vocal sound comes through the speakers to signal the return of Beyond Grace, and this time they mean business!
'Welcome to the New Dark Ages' will be released as three EP’s, eschewing the standard album cycle, with new tracks alongside one cover track per release, all culminating in a physical release which combines the entire saga together in one cohesive unit. It’s a different approach for the band, but times have changed, and they are moving with those times.
This first release has four songs, beginning with the explosive new single 'The Burning Season' which demonstrates the excellent riffing skills of both Tim Yearsley and Chris Morley on guitar as it shows how technical these songs have become. This is then followed up with the savage sounds of 'Buyer’s Remorse', which gives off some scary, evil vibes, especially with a bass sound that has a prog edge to it from singer/bass player Andy Walmsley. It gives the song a completely different feel but fits the song perfectly and something that I hope they explore further with their next few releases.
But it’s with the third song, 'Misinfodemic' that the band really shine, as it’s an infectious, intense song, that has that true death metal feel to it, snarling growling vocals, explosive rat a tat drumming from Ed Gorrod, and it feels that the guitarist are having a contest to outdo each other, which adds to dramatic effect before the middle slower section, to give a much more rounded song.
They end it with a cover of Peter Gabriel’s 'Here Comes The Flood' and they sound even heavier and angrier than before, but it shows a softer, gentler sound, with moody clean vocals and a brooding atmosphere. It all adds to the sense of anticipation of what is yet to come from Beyond Grace, and the two other highly anticipated EP’s to follow.
