BEYOND THE VISIBLE LIGHT

Featuring a fascinating album cover, OVRFWRD (I have a harder time spelling this than I'd like to admit), to my pleasure, had nothing to do with the modern prog band waves of cold virtuosity and polyrhythmic frenzy. What I have seen while listening to BEYOND THE VISIBLE LIGHT are reasonable musicians that opt for melodies and don't overload they sound with countless instruments, which, while not depicting any mind-boggling virtuosity, are nonetheless accomplished and get their point across satisfactorily. In the end, that's all that matters.

Many things permit me to compare OVRFWRD to DISCIPLINE, although the first is entirely instrumental and latter has a more eclectic, symphonic sound. Both arose in the musical scenario where blasting sounds were the norm (coff coff GRUNGE); both sound gritty and dark, and neither demonstrates instrumental skill overflow. Naturally though, OVRFWRD still has a path to take to reach the beloved band's critical acclaim.

As I said, BEYOND THE VISIBLE light is surprisingly gloomy. Maybe because, since the last source of light is beyond grasp, they were obliged to embrace the darkness. OVRFWRD's music sounds modern, characteristic of this epoch, and so we can see a distinctive focus on the guitar with an overload of distortion and guitar harmonics. Perhaps a better exploration of other instruments with more embracing compositions would have benefited the band's sound.

I'm sorry, but I can't ignore how their sound resembles METALLICA's instrumental songs. Even though that thankfully they didn't inherit the thrashers' overly boring that makes me think "please end this", that similarity took a large sum of what could be OVRFWRD's uniqueness, and along with it, chunks of interest away from me. I blame the guitar tuning.

Can We Keep the Elephant's intro is pretty prog as the guitar, keyboards, and drums all have equal shares of the limelight. The song quickly shifts to being guitar led though. The grave, murkier tone I spoke of is especially noticeable in the (great) medievalesque bits of Stones of Temperance; the song's energy and darkness makes me think OVRFWRD is fighting for their lives, or perhaps that they had an omen of devastation and are trying to warn the world about it. They gain aggressiveness and melody in Raviji, although it's ended in a sadder tone. The Man With No Shoes was a delightful surprise as it shows us OVRFWRD's jazzy side, presented on the long bohemian guitar and keyboards duo. While they have constructed an enjoyable atmosphere, I felt the guitar still sounded dingy, as opposed to nimble and soothing as the passage demanded. In fact, that's how I felt most non-distorted parts sound like: too somber. Darkest Star presents us exactly that, as the song is predominated by a lack of distortion. The chaotically noisy outro filled with piano cacophony and distorted guitar sweeps was an unexpected twist that peppered the mood in the same way cinnamon and clove seasons desserts.

Maybe the METALLICA influences, guitar-orientation and grittiness was a bit too much for OVRFWRD's sound, but the debut really demonstrates what great potential they have. While they weren't able to charm me on this attempt, I'm still interested in looking their development and eager to check out how much they developed on their next release.

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