Band:	Beyond Insanity
Album:	Beyond Insanity
Style:	Deathcore
Release date:	2010
A review by:	Darkside Momo

01. My Way Of Life
02. Psycho(Path)etic
03. Sorry
04. Gone
05. Skin Cemetary

Beyond Insanity are a young band from southern France that are fascinated by madness, as anyone can guess. But not generic madness. Their main source of inspiration is one of the most infamous serial killers ever, Ed Gein himself. Yes, the one that inspired Slayer for their "Dead Skin Mask".

Main musical difference here, our Frenchies here play death metal, not thrash. Not to say there are not thrash riffs in there. Fact is, there are a lot of things indeed! Death grunts, nü/core clean vocals, hardcore rythmics and choruses, syncopated riffing, intense death drumming, there's all that and more. Add to that a lot of riffs, breaks, tempo and structure changes, and you have quite a decibel storm.
And if this does sound a bit crazy, it's only natural. The erratic and somewhat broken songwriting, with all these stylistic changes, riffs and breaks (but be warned, we're still far from what Ephel Duath can do for example), do add to this feeling of, well, madness.
The guitar work is really good, the riffs are fast, catchy and aggressive; the drumming is pretty intense too! The production is clear and powerful, it's really nice for a first EP.
And, what about the vocals? Varied they are, too. The grunts are good for sure. But there is a problem. Hum, well, two. First, they sometimes try too much to be insane. And also, while the use of clean and/or spoken vocals can be a good idea, it quite certainly isn't with their current incarnation, as these nü/core/whatever thingies are on the whole nothing short of irritating. Sure they add disturbance and uneasiness to it all, but damn, they'd need an upgrade. For shame, really, as the band can do better, the whispered break in "Sorry" being an example.
The songwriting suffers from a similar problem: it's promising and interesting, but it just tries too much to sound mad to be mad.

To conclude? Our patient Beyond Insanity is not really mad. OK, just a bit crazy.
But, considering the overall quality of this EP, which is their very first release, they certainly should be kept under surveillance. After all, as of now their first album should be recorded by now, and given the potential of this subject, we might expect an outbreak of psychopathic deviances. Especially if they corrected the little things mentioned before.