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*Yaaawwwnnn*

Well since I’m awake now, I figure I’ll write the review of Cult of Luna’s Earache debut The Beyond. Ya it’s beyond all right. Beyond a few things actually: boring, redundant, monotonous and just plain sucky.

What we have here is an extremely poor attempt at creating progressive doom songs with industrial influences thrown in for whatever reason. It’s funny because bands out there trying to be "different" often resort to using keyboards in their sound, which more often than not will drive fans away from such acts. The ambience created by the combination of keyboards and slow-paced music is totally void of any hooks to convince a listener to be even remotely interested in what Cult of Luna has to offer.

An immediate turn-off is definitely the screaming hardcore-ish vocals. Not surprising at all is that Cult of Luna was founded by members of a broken-up hardcore act called Eclipse.

Musically, after listening to the first couple of minutes of a song you pretty much know what you’re in store for. The Beyond has plenty of time to impress but never manages to within its painful 75 minute running time. I’m not trying to take away anything from the band members, they are talented individuals when it comes to playing their instruments. But as far as song writing is concerned, this is a terrible display. If the song lengths were cut down by half or maybe a quarter, that would have helped greatly. And the lack of a catch or moment of impact within a song doesn’t help either. This kind of "intellectual" stuff never sits well with me and I always find myself being more critical of bands trying to sound smarter than they actually (and obviously) are.

Every now and then you’ll hear a really powerful guitar riff or some kind of combination between the instruments that for a brief moment might peek your interest, but really all you’re in for are songs with little to no progression and that ultimately go nowhere for minutes on end. Let’s put it this way: if I were reviewing this for AlbumsToCurereInsomnia.com, The Beyond would be a 5 out of 5.