Beyond The Victory

Paradigm

Written by: MBC on 24/10/2013 01:40:50

Virginia-based metalcore band Beyond the Victory was formed in 2011 and worked two years on material that would eventually become their five-song debut EP "Paradigm", which was released earlier this year. In September the EP was re-released on Harbor Records, where the band is currently working on a full length release for next year.

"Paradigm" starts out really well with the opening of "Gilded" sounding like something from Born of Osiris; an atmospheric piece of electronica leading up to impressive high screams, palm-muted riffs and some melodic licks. But then they go and spoil it all about a minute and a half in by incorporating clean singing vocals. The fact that the band has two vocalists, one who screams and one who sings, is an interesting addition to the music and clean vocals in metal are not a bad thing at all. They can in fact function as excellent elements of musical expression, if they are done well. These sadly are not.

The melodic vocalist sings in a high, whiny pitch void of power and emotion. The other vocalist varies his screams between highs and lows, a typical style in metalcore, although his highs clearly are his weapon of choice since he uses them most of the time. Though his highs are good, they are very monotonous and do become a bit irritating to listen to after a while, and hopefully he will vary his vocal style a bit more on the band’s full length.

There is some good instrumentation to be found especially in the guitars, and in a few instances they actually get to stand out a bit, as is the case in "Paradigm" and "Glass Ceiling" that both feature a little bit of melodic soloing. For the most part though, the instrumentation is repetitiously based around heavy riffs, melodic licks and breakdowns and the constant switching between the vocalists that gets tedious after a while.

Beyond the Victory play music that is very ‘now’ and thus can probably get a lot of momentum through Harbor Records. There is value within the band, but they need to work on their song writing a lot in order to stand out from the pack. It will be interesting to see how they progress on their debut album next year, but based on this EP there is a bit of a way to go.

Download: Gilded, Paradigm, Glass Ceiling
For The Fans Of: The Devil Wears Prada, Reflections, Chiodos
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Release Date 09.24.2013
Harbor

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