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Pompous, Pretentious, Brave, Bizarre, All words which rage through my mind when faced with Beyond Twilight's most recent opus, For The Love Of Art And The Making. Before even moving on to the main body of the review, it's worth trying to get an understanding of what we're faced with here. 43 tracks ranging from mere seconds to around three minutes is enough to send the average metal fan flying to the bathroom, or to paint a smile from ear to ear with the average experimental/prog fan. Beyond Twilight mastermind Finn Zierler stated: "The concept is compounded by 43 sections and 3 hidden sections. The sections are pieces of a puzzle. Lyrics and music both play important roles. Each section has its own life/story and every section is a brick of the whole puzzle. Depending on in which order you listen to the pieces of the puzzle you'll get a new picture of For The Love Of Art And The Making. So you can really understand this piece of work in numerous different ways. It's up to you how you gather the puzzle." Pretty bold statement and idea, if I may say so myself. However in all fairness to the artist and to you the readers; I've listened to this album well over 30 times both in the original track order and in shuffled track order. It's also worth listening to tracks sharing similar titles; such as "The Perfect Heart" or "In The Eyes Of My Soul" to try achieve a greater understanding of the material.

From a strictly sonic point of view, For The Love Of Art And The Making is a fantastic album, but what do you expect - it's Beyond Twilight, one of the top Progressive Metal acts today, running along with acts such Anubis Gate, Circus Maximus, Pagan's Mind, and Communic. Featured is some of the heavier material Beyond Twilight have written to date: "Sleeping Beauty — The Journey", "Blackened In My Eyes" and "Dark Wild Rage" are all perfect examples, sounding very dense and ultimately crushing. Each and every instrument sounds stunning, especially the keys which are by far the high point of the album, dripping with saccharine at times, and then plummeting into deep dark territory, chilling to that Sunday afternoon sound. The vocals are another great point, with Bjorn Jansson tearing it up sounding very similar to previous vocalists Jorn Lande and Kelly "Sundown" Carpenter.

Harking back to the earlier statement of ring-leader Finn Zierler, shuffling the tracks on this album doesn't seem to work too well - a lot of tracks just don't gel together. I'd certainly recommend listening to this album in the normal track order. After so many listens I still feel as though I'm merely scratching the surface and to be honest I can't see that feeling leave me. A lot of the lyrics come across as ridiculous; "Tongue Angel" being a prime example here:

Helium balloons won't keep the clowns from the cliff side
  You are the tongue angel
  The last 6 years you opened your mouth when it rained
And hoped to drown
  Your pleasure my pain - your pain my pleasure
  Don't play with my mind
  This is dangerous

What on earth that is meant to mean fails to register with me; other such bizarre lyrics can be found throughout. A glimpse at the track listing could answer your question of how pretentious a lot of this seems from the beginning. At the end of the day this album is certainly worth looking into. It's a brave move from a band more than able to pull it off, I just feel the end result comes over as a little too pompous, but am most intrigued to see what these guys come up with next. For fans of Progressive Metal this is a no brainer, and guaranteed listening for the rest of your life.