Northern Germany, March. Somewhere in the prairie of Schleswig-Holstein. It's late in the evening. Music producer Thorsten Brötzmann sits together with the Wacken promoters Thomas Jensen and Holger Hübner. They speak about the Wacken Foundation, which Brötzmann is a part of as a board member. After they're done talking, Brötzmann reminds himself that he wanted to play to Thomas and Holger a musical piece that he has discovered. He puts the first recordings of Beyond The Black in his stereo. The Wacken promoters are stoked. It's not accurately reported, but the duo Jensen-Hübner probably said something like: "We need this band for Wacken", because a couple of months later Beyond The Black celebrate their first on-stage appearance at the world's biggest metal festival - it's the beginning of a success story.

Now Beyond The Black release their first album, which will close a gaping hole in Germany's music scene. They play female fronted metal that swings back and forth between epic and pomp, sophisticated gothic melodies and heavy guitar solos. The band is not afraid of embedding melancholic keyboard parts and is always keen to deliver a catchy tune. One perfect example - "In The Shadows", a song that uses a powerful refrain to carve itself into one's ears, while flute and bagpipe provide an epic atmosphere. Always in the spotlight - the voice of 19-year-old Jennifer Haben. She formed the band together with friends in Mannheim, who are all college-trained, professional musicians and have broad musical influences from Evanescence to Pantera. Jennifer herself plays piano since she has been six, saxophone since she has been seven years old. She first joined a band when she was only nine years old. Some people are simply born for music. Later she taught herself to play guitar, won singing contests and found her new love in rock and metal.

The logical next step is Beyond The Black and their debut album, which was produced by Sascha Paeth in collaboration with the team of Elephant Music. The songs on it deal with the rocks that life throws in your way. They tell the listener about the pain of separation, blows of fate, but also about hope, the overwhelming will to fight and to never give up. They are Songs Of Love And Death as the band expresses it with one of their song titles. Songs so full of symbolism, that they allow every listener to extract an own personal message. Songs, that impress with their atmosphere - an atmosphere, which was also discovered by the directors of the movie Northmen - A Viking Saga. When their movie hit the cinemas the viking metal band Amon Amarth already published a music video referring to the movie. For the DVD release of Northmen - A Viking Saga Beyond The Black follow Amon Amarth's lead.

Their upcoming music video for the song "In The Shadows" will show scenes from the spectacular action movie - and a band that already has one hit song up its sleeve. Besides many powerful original songs a cover version found its way onto the album - a cover of Motörhead's hard rock ballad "Love Me Forever". "I always liked the song and imagined what it would sound like on a piano since I have first heard it. Now I was finally able to play it as I had imagined", says Jennifer about the song that Beyond The Black borrowed from metal heroes Motörhead.

They are experienced when it comes to metal heroes anyway. Their first tour led them to England - as support for Saxon, whose fans were enthused. Beyond The Black want to follow up on that success. They will tour with another top act that hasn't been revealed yet. Also they will go on their first headlining tour in autumn. Before that they'll take part in the Metal Cruise and also return to the place of their initial triumph - Wacken. This time they will bring an album with them, with which they want to conquer the rest of the world.

(Source: Facebook, 5.12.2015)