Band:	Beyond Twilight
Album:	Section X
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Malcolm

01. Be Careful It's My Head Too
02. The Path Of Darkness
03. Shadow Self
04. Sleeping Beauty
05. The Dark Side
06. Portrait F In Dark Waters
07. Ecstasy Arise
08. Section X

There are so many ways to start this review, I could start to talk about past and present members, or maybe about the bands history, or why not about this album right on the way.
Decisions, decisions, all these delicious decisions.

Ahh, crap, I'll just start as usual by present the band for you, because I know that most of you never heard of them, even if there are at least one reason why you should have.
Beyond Twilight are not as new as you might think by looking at their discography, they where originally named Twilight and released a demo in 1992, a single in 1994 and a full-length also in 1994, before changing their name too Beyond Twilight because of some line-up changes and stuff.
Beyond Twilight has released one demo in 1999 and one full-length in 2001 before this album.
And it's their first full-length (as Beyond Twilight) that contains the reason why you might have heard of Beyond Twilight, on that album was no other than Jörn Lande (Ark, Yngwie Malmsteen and Masterplan) the bands singer.

But he is gone and two new members joined Beyond Twilight in 2004, singer Kelly "Sundown" Carpenter (Outworld) and the vocalist/guitar player Jacob Hansen (Invocator), and the band is also contains the keyboardist from the more known Danish band Manticora, Finn Zierler.
A quite strong line-up if you're asking me, and with Jörn gone, the band maybe has a chance to strike because of great musicianship and material, not just because Jörn sings there.

"Section X" is their new albums name, and for me it's my first contact with Beyond Twilight, and since I never heard the release with Twilight nor the debut with Jörn, I can't compare them, so I'll speak out of my experiences with this album only.
The first thing that struck me was the keyboards, I could early hear that a keyboarder ruled Beyond Twilight, and I was right. Second was the singer, Kelly might not be as famous as Jörn, but I wonder if he's not a better match for Beyond Twilight than Jörn, at least for this record.

The music is Sci-Fi Prog/Power with tons of keyboards and really (surprisingly) strong guitars, the mix is good and I can, for one of the first times, confess that this amount of keyboards aren't bothering me at all.
But the things that takes away score from this one is first the lack of material, sure it's 8 songs and they are all over 4 minutes, but two of them are short (one intro and one instrumental), that leaves on 6 real songs.
And it's also a bit to alike; all the songs feel like one big one, with just some progressive turns here and there.

But production is great and they are skilled musicians, so I won't complain too much, but I felt that I had to bring it up.
So if you're into Keyboard-driven Progressive/Power with Sci-Fi theme, this might be something for you, Beyond Twilight are rising, and I'm sure many of us will hear about them in the future.
But for now they have a pretty long road to walk, but I'm sure it will end quicker than expected, Beyond Twilight are on their way.

Check Out: "The Path of Darkness" & "Shadow Self".