A German one-person blackened death metal act. On August 15th 2024, The Hell Beyond released his independent debut full-length album, “Cold Forest”, which was released through Dark Times Records and promoted through GlobMetal Promotions.
The Hell Beyond, Cold Forest: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins of Cold Forest
Let’s start by discussing the first three sins of The Hell Beyond and his album, Cold Forest.
The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Features guitar work with a dark-pulsing groove and extensive and aggressive riffs/solos that give the music character. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Involves unholy snarling growls and gives you that scare factor of the unexpected changes in the vocal ranges. The Third Sin—The Percussions: Delves into a vast world of intense and relentless drum work.
The Fourth Sin: Overall Discussion: Exudes an unsettling horror capable of distorting the very fabric of one’s mind and soul.
The opening piece, Deumus, greets the listener with dark, mechanical and menacing drum marches, and guitar work, followed by beastly growls as they press that play button.
As the listener delves further into the musical journey with the second piece, Decision, and the remaining eight songs, they will encounter an intricate and dark landscape. It took me two plays to truly immerse myself in the enigmatic essence of The Hell Beyond. This music captivates with its refusal to conform to mainstream expectations; it challenges the listener and beckons them to explore uncharted territory.
The production of the music is intentionally simplistic, maintaining an unpolished and underground feel. And what helps this underground feel, is that Cold Forest is a dark, cold and unsettling horror that involves ten songs that are spread across under fifty minutes. Each song is different in tone, tempo, mood, atmosphere and various compositions and experimentations through the music, instrumental, and vocals. At times, the listener will encounter moments of guitar work with mid-pace tempo to pulsing groove, or extensive guitar work.
The Hell Beyond vocal devilmanship is on another level and not of this earth. Providing the listener with this scare factor of the unexpected changes in the vocal’s artistry that instils a sense of horror within the listener’s ears, mind, and soul. Within the vocal devilmanship is a mixture, at times and most of the time, the vocals feature these unholy snarling growls, as if something is trying to escape from the cold and dark music. As well, as clean/aggressive with haunting whispers, female spellbinding vocals and spoken words are included within the walls of the music.
The Hell Beyond stands as a sinister threshold, extending far beyond a mere connection between death and black metal. It embodies an enigmatic fusion of dark, malevolent, and experimental elements that exude an unsettling horror capable of distorting the very fabric of one’s mind and soul.
If you are a fan of disturbing and raw music, The Hell Beyond is a good choice for you. But please be aware that this music is intended for opening and thinking out-the-box music fans.
The album comes to an end with the last song, The Dark Lord. We want to give a shoutout to GlobMetal Promotions for letting us review The Hell Beyond and his Cold Forest album. Now, we’re going to wrap it up by talking about the final three sins and concluding the review.
You’re Listening to “Reborn”
PlayThe Last Three Sins
Let’s discuss the last three sins of The Hell Beyond and his album, Cold Forest.
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia:
For me, this unsettling, dark and cold fruit of art, with a composition and devilmanship deviates from the norm by seamlessly blending dark and extreme metal elements. It feels like opening Lemarchand’s box and uncovering something completely unholy and unexpected, and an aura of darkness and disorientation.
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork:
The artwork is as dark as the music, at the same time, the artwork adds additional darkness and disorientation to the music.
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish:
Nothing to disrelish within the musical spectrum of The Hell Beyond and his album, Cold Forest.
This concludes The Hell Beyond, Cold Forest review.
Track-listing:
- Deumus
- Last Cry
- Dark Witch
- Druid Stones
- Decision
- Crucifixion
- The Ending
- Reborn
- The Rising
- The Dark Lord
Cold Forest Is:
- Thorben Brysch: vocals, guitars, bass
Band/Artist Links:
