While there have been plenty of occasions where I’ve stumbled onto their songs while letting YouTube rabbit hole its own way around, I’ve never actually listened to an album of Beyond Creation’s in its entirety. ‘Algorythm’ is their third album and flows through so many movements during its 50 minutes that if you aren’t left breathless and enthralled by what’s happening, you aren’t listening intently enough.
The French Canadian quartet have the album open up with the instrumental “Disenthrall” by Louis-Pier Racicot, Olivier Caron and Louis-Philippe Beauchamp on violin, cello and French horns respectively, the three of them make two further appearances on the album. However, it’s when Simon Girard opens his mouth on “Entre Suffrage Et Mirage” that you know Hugo Doyon-Karout’s smooth bass transitions accompanying Girard and Kevin Chartré’s guitars aren’t going to be an on avant-garde jazz album.
The endless, non-repetitive bass runs on “Surface’s Echoes” have Philippe Boucher working his magic on the drums, keeping the varied tempo changes cohesive and coordinated, without ever missing a beat.
Starting with an acoustic guitar, “Ethereal Kingdom” slowly adds layers of drums, guitars and bass, then vocals before leads take things up another level.
There’s a lyric video for the title track “Algorythm” which gives a little hint of the softer, slower tones the band is capable of, if you’re inclined to give it a listen.
The brief “À Travers Le Temps Et L’Oubli” has a piano joined by the violin, cello and horns to give it a far more majestic orchestral feel before dropping into “In Adversity” where things rapidly escalate to the twin vocals of Girard and Chartré fighting for supremacy in much the same way their guitars and Doyon-Karout’s bass do.
Youri Raymond (Unhuman) adds his vocals to “The Inversion”, with the song itself a smorgasbord of timing signatures and musical interludes, and it too has a pretty cool video to go with it.
Instrumental “Binomial Structures” is like a fractal, in that the more you listen for, the more you hear and there are so many intricate little things happening in each layer that as soon as you isolate the fretless bass, a lead come in to take your attention, followed by an offbeat on the snare that distracts you from a change in rhythm and tempo. It could all become very confusing unless you just sit back and let it flow over you as its layers cascade around you in an aural avalanche.
The final track, “The Afterlife”, has both blasting and a laconic lead being played over rapidly changing guitar riffs that complement the guttural vocals in much the same way the strings and brass do on the outro of the song.
There are meant to be two bonus instrumental tracks of “Surface’s Echoes” and “The Afterlife” on some versions of the CD, but not on the promo I’ve got, sadly.
Progressive technical death metal at its best, that’s for sure.
(9/10 Marco Gaminara)
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