AN NCS PREMIERE: BEAUTALITY — “FROM THE ABYSS”

 

There’s nothing wrong with metal that wholly honors the purity of the particular sub-genre in which it dwells, whether it be black metal, death metal, thrash, or something else. But there’s still something particularly intriguing about bands who branch outside the traditional confines of individual genres and attempt  to integrate a variety of musical influences, creating sounds that can’t be classified with any well-defined purist labels. That’s what the London-based band Beautality have done on their new album Einfallen: A Tale Ov Torment & Triumph.

Even the band’s name signals their intent to dissolve genre boundaries and express ideas through a hybrid of moods, atmospheres, and styles, and that mission is reflected in the songs they’ve created. In this post we bring you the premiere of one of the new album’s tracks — an epic-length work entitled “From the Abyss” — which follows previous premieres at Metal Hammer and Invisible Oranges.

 

Beautality’s David Ravengarde

 

“From the Abyss” is a 19-minute saga that draws from a variety of musical wellsprings, including (but not limited to) black metal, post-metal, and gothic rock. Over its ever-evolving course it rocks hard and it hypnotizes, it swarms and it shimmers, it hammers with headbanging rhythms and it carries you away with sweeping, panoramic melodies. It’s loud and it’s subdued, furious and morose, ravaging and sublime.

As varied as the instrumental music is, so too are the vocals, ranging from cracked-ice black metal rasps to death metal growls to impassioned clean song.

But this isn’t a random juxtaposition of styles. Despite the dynamic variety of musical styles, volume, rhythms, and pacing, the song’s changes aren’t jarring. There’s a flow in what happens that ultimately makes sense — overall, this is dark, dramatic music. And what may not be immediately obvious, especially given the way in which the song starts and the variations that subsequently unfold, is that Beautality are building an emotional effect. They do it subtly, but cumulatively, and by the end, the weight of sorrow and melancholy has become undeniable and immersive.

Einfallen will be released by Nordavind Records on March 15 and can be pre-ordered here, both digitally and as a double-CD:

https://nordavindrecords.bandcamp.com/album/einfallen-a-tale-ov-torment-triumph

Those two previously released songs from the album mentioned above can also now be heard at that same location — and so we’ve included streams of them below as well.

https://www.facebook.com/beautality777