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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.

1. The Gate
2. A Kingdom's Lost Beauty
3. The Ancient Realms
4. An Angel's Requiem
5. Bleeding Rose
6. Dream In Beautiful Slumber
7. Mournful Abyss
8. Tribute To Resurrection
9. Prophecy Of Salvation
10. Forgotten Past