FOR THE LOVE OF ART AND THE MAKING

One of the most intriguing albums, definitely something for everyone in here in one way or the other. This is my favorite album thus released in '06. These guys have set the bar real high, and it will be interesting to see if anyone can top them.

Whether or not you like the music, one must respect the creative aspect of this album. Even non traditional progressive listeners can find entertaining moments here, as you cant help but smile when you hear certain parts. The best part about the album is it gets better every time you play it, and its flexible enough to allow you to listen to any point of it and make the sections as random or fixed as you want. Highly recommended.

The second review without 5 stars is Zitro's!

This album not only is innovative, complex, unique, and possible groundbreaking, but it is also intensively enjoyable. That said, it's uniqueness affects it negatively too. The album is divided into dozens of tiny pieces connected to each other to make a long song. It is innovative and unique as nobody did a song of short pieces where you can shuffle them and still get a somewhat coherent epic. Yes, I am not joking, though the overall coherence is slightly marred from doing this collection of little pieces that always have to gel with each other. Hopefully, they will master this use and make their masterpiece. Another thing to note is that it sounds like excellent horror music.

Perfect Beginnings: When I first heard this album, I thought I was really hearing the best metal album of all times as the first 5 pieces are flawless tiny masterpieces. The "In the Eyes of My Soul" theme is extremely majestic and is the best intro you can think of (and the best theme to be used in other parts in an album). The other four are perfect too: Creep Evil is spooky, the two Sleeping Beauty are guitar- heavy pieces of art and Purity gives me goosebumps. 10/10

Synths,Screams, and Interludes: After that, you get "Tongue Angel/I moved" where the synth riff is annoying (while the rest is amazing such as the synth solo). "Blackened" starts to turn me offwith the over-dramatic screaming vocals, though the guitar playing is good. The next four pieces seem different to each other and don't connect that well,especially when Fiery Woman starts. 7/10

Perfect Heart thru Caged Bird: We're now hearing slower tempos and more lovely arrangements. Perfect Hearts is nice, though underwhelming until pt3 which features a nice guitar melody. Black Widow is dark and recalls the horror music from the beginning of the album. Dark Wild Rage is a disappointing metal song that has Dream Theater influences combined with Symphonic arrangements. The Caged Bird song is a classical metal song with complex playful arrangements, doomy vocal harmonies and electric guitars. 7/10

Cold As Blue / Awakening : Now the album gets back on track with stronger pieces. Cold As Blue is apiano ballad with grunts and unusual vocals that leads perfectly into The Awakening's elegant piano and percussive brushes. Cold As Blue has Call and Response vocals with the same piano on the background. A tiny interludes helps Awakening pt2/pt3 finish with lovely melodies. 9/10

Weird and Creepy Part + in the eyes of my soul : I like the "in the eyes of my soul" with violins and faster tempo. Past Magic is interesting enough with it's electric guitar riff blending in with playful symphonic keyboards, pt2 continues it with rhythmic laughter that sounds like Phil Collins' "mama" song: not my cup of tea. After a creepy interlude, in the eyes of my soul returns and packs quite a punch, while not being too similar from the first piece of the album. 6 seconds past 6 is too random and doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when the piano starts. I don't know how to criticize it, but it just doesn't sound right and makes me feel puzzled. Organ Scientific Formula (1) is the most terrifying song of the record with the church organs, doomy electric guitars, and a multi-layered macabre laughter. The organ solo in the end is excellent and is accompained by frenzied rhythm guitars. 8/10

Finale: Night wandering starts again and the symphonic metal of 6 Black Roses pleases your ears if they wanted some rocking out. Autumn Fog Message has a great melodic guitar solo that is an element somewhat lacking in this album. Afterwards, the Black Box of Reverse is another part of "Sleeping Beauty" and is very bizarre with reverse recording effects (I think). The album finishes predictably with the great "In the eyes of my soul" main theme. 8/10

Great creative album, but I think they should focus more on coherence and listenable parts as well as melody. Nevertheless, if you are a music lover and want to try something new and challenging, get this album.

My Grade : B

I was never a fan of Beyond Twilight. I had heard some material from years past, and it was not my kind of metal. I heard about this new album which was one big song, divided up into 43 tracks, which could supposedly be shuffled for a new experience every time. Intriguing, but I wasn't going to pounce on it. However, I did look out for reviews on the archives to see how it was received by others. After having maitained a 5.00 rating through nearly twenty reviews, I decided it was worth checking out. The sample from the band's website was proof enough that this had purchase-worthy quality. I was very surprised. It was so epic and powerful, and it was only three minutes of the song! The new vocalist surely outdid whoever worked with them before. He had a "metal" voice, but it was, thankfully, more than just that. The feeling and melody coming from the vocals were excellent. The music was complex, but not bombastic.

So I bought the album, and for the most part, it delivered on the hype it was getting. The sections are a little choppy and slightly incoherent later on in the album, but not terribly so. I'm not sure of this either, but I hope that the orchestra (or orchestral instruments) are really being performed by an orchestra. The linear notes make no note of it though. That would be the only other downfall here. Either way, it still sounds great, so I won't complain. Thoguh it may seem to be at first, it is not the greatest heavy metal album ever made (but it sure could have been). It is very epic and intriguing. Unfortunately, the shuffle feature doesn't always work. You have to meticulously place the tracks in a logical order for it to work. It is a cool idea though.

In conclusion, a powerful epic that metal fans (prog or not) really ought to check out. Along with the new Underoath, it's the biggest surprise of 2006 thus far. 4.5 stars rounded down.

Another hyper-overated album. Despite all the pretencious track listing and lyrics, the music itself does not go far the traditional and completely out-of-date heavy-metal structures with mediocre symphonic arrangements played without any sign of passion. They are in a terrain bands like Symphony X, Andromeda, Evergrey, Eternity X, Fates no More and many many more (almost uncountable) embraced many years ago.

There is no much to say about the music, its lack of direction is intoxicating. The best part is reserved to the pianos, but still played too technical and less feeled.

Just one more album to join the infinitness of albuns using the original Dream Theater/Symphony X formulas.

Beyond Twilight's ambitious third album gets my pick for best prog album of 06. For the Art of Love and making is a 38 minute suite divided into 43 very short tracks. I feel that it simply should have been one track, but that's beside the point and it doesn't affect the album at all. Thank God iTunes now offers gapless playback or else this would have driven me insane. Björn Jansson's vocals are superb, going from clean to growls to piercing screams. The rest of teh band delivers one of the heaviest prog metal albums of the year, alongside Christ 0. The greatest part of this album is that it hooks you on the first listen. It's a lot more enjoyable than a lot of prog albums.

The album's dizzying time changes and counter-melodies can leave you drooling.The album starts off with chanting that sounds like Ave Maria. Then the guitars come in for the spooky Creep Evil before pummeling you. Six minutes later, synths come in that momentarily break the flow, but the solo is great. The rest of the album alternates between heavy guitars and slightly softer synths, but it never gets truly soft.

If Beyond Twilight continues to make creative and (gasp!) enjoyable music, they'll be making masterpieces in no time.

Grade: B+

To talk about Beyond Twilight´s For the love of art and the making in the Archives, one can´t help recall thouse first 15 reviews...5 stars. This album had for a while, a good while also, only 5 star ratings, more than a month I believe. I remember it well, cause I even started a thread in the forum to talk about this album, when I didn´t even own it. Then the 4 stars rating drop in and all went back to normal. Now this album has a good rating, but I fear too low for what it is... yet, I have discided not to give it a 5 star either... so... I am part of the problem too... damn it... Still, this is one goooood album!!!

Ok, now, back to the actual rating... you know when you listen to an album knowing it´s gonna be good, but when you actually listen to it it blows you out of your chair (and head) and it´s even better than what you thought it would be? Well...take that, inject it with steroids and you´ll have an idea of what this album did to my ears! No joke, this album really did that to me, and there is so much going on in this 37 minutes, that it´s almoust impossible you wion´t feel the same, at least for a few seconds (if not the whole thing).

It seems to me Beyond Twilight was just another power prog metal band like so many others before this album...and I think Zierler, the keyboardist, main composer and band leader knew that. He also knew that to stand out in this genre one must do something BIG, something that makes us do "aaaahhhs.." and "uuuhhhs...". Opeth did it with it´s brutal/soft combo of songs, Pain of Salvation with their concept albums, Green Carnation with their 60 minutes long song...and Zierler thought "Now, how can I be on that same level of popularity? Of course " he thought " I´ll make a 37 minutes long song, divided in 43 pieces, which can be heard in any order and still work!" And so he did (actual facts may vary). The result... mindblowing, the metal album of the year and a sure curse for them, cause now, that they have done it and they did it goood...where can they go? I mean, can you go any further, can you break more boundaries as a band after this? I surely hope you can, but it´s gonna be very hard for them...

But hey, I didn´t say anything about the actual music? Well...picture a power prog band... now, forget the fact that most bands in that style suck! Then take a confusing but original concept, throw some exceptional keyboard playing in the mix, some latin here and there, goosebumps sections and...voila! Yet, this could all lead to disaster way to easily, well, just to make sure it doesn´t, add Finn Zierler as main composer of the piece and you can bet this album is nothing else but one hell of an album.