BEYOND THE SIXTH SEAL: The Relevant Material

This band has always remained somewhat of a mystery to me. Despite releasing potentially my favorite melodic metalcore EP of all time, I never really knew much of this band. In the past several months I've managed to piece together a somewhat full story on the band. Below is a combination of quoted and paraphrased material I've tracked down on various sites. Apologies if anyone is offended by me using their work.


"Boston's Beyond the Sixth Seal's roots began in 1998, when several friends who were tired of just playing guitar decided to become a full time band. After recruiting a rhythm section and vocalist, the band played a live show at a local college, and then recorded a 4-song record demo, "Genocide Empire," for about $100 dollars in their practice space. At this time, the band was only referred to as Legion, but the members were dissatisfied with the name. Legion would become Beyond the Sixth Seal after a name drawing out of a hat session. In 2000, the band would experience some line-up changes, recruiting a new guitarist, as well as a vocalist, before playing its first true show with Eternal Suffering and Breedinground. Another demo was recorded that year, and found its way to Germany's Voice of Life Records/Distro. In late-2000, BtSS would agree to release a CDEP on the label. "A Homicide Divine" would be released in early-2001, followed by a two-week stint in Germany that summer. Unfortunately, in early-2002, BtSS and their vocalist, Lawrence Kwong, would part ways and following a lengthy search, Mike McKenzie, of The Red Chord, would eventually join the band."

It appears as though not long after the departure of original vocalist, Lawrence Kwong, the band would also lose the services of guitarist Rob Devlin. Adam Wentworth, the bassist on the debut EP, would move up to rhythm guitar duties while a new bassist would be brought in the form of former American Nightmare member, Matt Woods. The band would record their follow-up full length entitled Earth And Sphere with this line-up and, in turn, would do a US tour with A Life Once Lost and On Broken Wings (which was originally supposed to make a stop at my venue, The Planet Of The Apes). This effort was initially set to be released in the US by Willowtip Records with Voice Of Life handling the European release once again. While the album would have fit in well at the time with the label's roster, I'm glad it didn't happen so that I can actually post the album without the guy who runs that label flagging my upload haha ... I digress.

It would not be long after this trek that yet another member of The Red Chord would be brought in to fill the vacant bass position left by Matt Woods. Greg Weeks went from being a "fill-in" bassist to permanent by the end of the year and the band went on a co-headlining tour of Europe with The Red Chord in 2003. It wouldn't be long after this that the band would decide to call it quits. Presumably this decision was spurred on by the heightening response that The Red Chord was receiving at the time.

For whatever reason, the "band" decided to reunite for another album in 2007. I say "band" because this time around the line-up would only consist of one original member in the form of drummer Brendan Roche along with the two Red Chord members Greg Weeks and Mike McKenzie. The album was entitled "The Resurrection Of Everything Tough" and featured an extremely un-funny gimmick about the band coming back as werewolves or something along those lines. The press release that is still featured on the Metal Blade Records site (because the band was now considered a "Red Chord side project") is wrought with mindless metal-humor rhetoric about things being "bad ass". While the album still has the remnants of some of the licks once found on their earlier releases, I'm not going to bother posting this as I'm sure Metal Blade would file a Copyrighted Material case against the upload. God knows they probably have a warehouse full of this album. I'm not sure I ever remember an album flopping as hard as this one.

Don't believe me? Watch this...



Those of you who read the blog know I'm typically not very critical of the bands I post about. In this case, however, I choose to vent on an issue that tends to replay throughout the history of metal and hardcore. A member or two of a band deciding to keep things going way past it's time ... and, in fact, even going as far to reform the band despite having zero connection to the original intent of the band. I get wanting to "just have fun with" a project (which is what these guys were obviously doing) ... but then I ask what the point is in using the name of the former project which obviously once meant something to the original members. I'll never get it but I'll also stop whining.

In summary, this band released one of my favorite EP's of all time. The follow-up full length wasn't too bad either despite some member changes. Somewhere along the line the band turned into a joke side project. It's a shame but shit happens. At least the original line-up put their efforts to tape before disbanding. In fact, I actually own a re-released version of the EP which features a "bonus" fifth song entitled Drawn From Autumn. It's sick.

I would be extremely excited if anyone would be kind enough to contact me to share Mp3s of ANY of their three original demos (one was released under the name Legion). I would be eternal grateful to have an opportunity to hear more material pieced together by the original, legitimate line-up of this band.

DOWNLOAD - BEYOND THE SIXTH SEAL: The Relevant Material

Blog Update

Apologies for the delays. I apparently had multiple attempts to hack into my account in the past few months so Google took it upon themselves to freeze everything to do with the account ... including the blog.

I'm extremely busy with my job in the concert promotion field. While the job (along with other factors) has totally ruined the fun I used to have at shows ... it HAS given me a greater appreciation for music (which is soooooo much different from concerts) than I've had in a long time. I've been geeking out at record stores,  buying higher capacity iPods and listening to an even wider range of music than I probably ever have. Of course I've also been digging deeper and deeper into obscurity and will be providing even more gems for download. Here's an example with a self-released EP from Pittsburgh's tech metalcore front-runners from 2009.

DOWNLOAD: BELIE MY BURIAL - self-titled EP

NO REASON TO LIVE: Demo 2012

Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm being partial to my friends' bands whenever I realize that the only bands I enjoy any more are from the Pittsburgh area ... and then I realize that I only like Pittsburgh bands lately because only Pittsburgh bands are genuinely heavy lately.

This is a project featuring Joe Bonnadio who has done vocals for Built Upon Frustration in the past and currently plays guitar for Path To Misery. This is just the beginning for this band and I'm telling you from first-hand experience that the songs they have written which are yet to be recorded are even better.

This is pissed.

DOWNLOAD/STREAM AT THEIR BANDCAMP PAGE

PEACEKEEPER: Demo

This post is a long-time coming. Let me tell you a story...

Imagine a time when people didn't understand what Mp3s were. I can remember my first downloading experience being Metallica's track from the Mission Impossible movie, "I Disappear". This is essentially what prompted Lars Ulrich and the boys to file that huge lawsuit against Napster back in 1998/1999. Mp3s had a very strange stigma attached to them at the time. With many people being afraid to download from Napster, a site arose with the simple URL of mp3.com.

Mp3.com was relatively monumental at the time of its creation. It was a FREE service that allowed ANY band to upload two songs in Mp3 format. An obvious pre-cursor to MySpace and BandCamp, Mp3.com was THE destination to find new bands online at the time. Prior to this your only hopes at finding new bands were through the liner notes of the discs and 7"s you actually bought (crazy concept, right?). IF you were internet-savvy you could MAYBE track down some bands on sites like GeoCities, Tripod or Homestead. Chances are, however, if you managed to find these sites the bandwidth usage limit had already been reached due to more than one person downloading the Real Media file that month.

Mp3 allowed smaller independent bands to "compete" with the likes of any other band out there. I know this first hand as my shitty high school hardcore band made it to Number 1 on the Metal Charts for two days in a row (we beat out Zao and Evergreen Terrace). You could make "radio stations" which were the pre-cursor to podcasts. Later in its lifetime you could even make your songs available for download. It was a really monumental thing.

Now that I've gotten completely off-track, I'll get to the reason why I'm making this post. My first true love from the mp3.com era was a considerably obscure band called Peacekeeper. Considering the band never responded to the e-mail I sent them on mp3.com, the only information I could ever find on the band was that they were centered around the Minneapolis area and that they had a track on a Burning Records compilation.

The band never went on to release anything other than a demo that I spent a solid 13 years searching for. Thanks to the combined efforts of Jordan from Too Pure To Die and Evan from Nehemiah, the Mp3s of this 7 song demo finally landed in my e-mail inbox a few days ago. I've been listening to it non-stop ever since. The band had Christian overtones and a very emotional metalcore sound that most would compare to early Poison The Well. I obviously think the band has it's own uniqueness to it, but I could go on for hours about the perfection of this demo and the era in which it came from.

DOWNLOAD.

One King Down

The two best One King Down songs performed in an amazing atmosphere. Had to share as this is a rather ideal hardcore show atmosphere.

One Path For Me Through Destiny

I've posted about this blog before, but wanted to reiterate how unbelievably awesome it is. This is the ONLY blog that consistently uploads releases that I somehow do not already own. The extensive nature of Edwin's collection is awe-inspiring ... ESPECIALLY when you consider the fact that he was piecing his collection together in the early-mid 90s from the Netherlands!!! That is true dedication to music and hardcore right there. Check out his blog ... it's somehow moreso obscure than mine!

ONE PATH FOR ME THROUGH DESTINY

XAPHAN: Demo 2012

Followers of the blog know that I rarely post about new bands ... because most new bands suck. Xaphan is a new band. They don't suck. They're awesome, actually. Joel from Disembodied managed to somehow replace the irreplaceable members of Disembodied with the likes of those from Threadbare. This is what results. Damn.

I promise this demo is worth a small donation ... but it's free if you're that big of an ass.

DOWNLOAD AT XAPHAN'S BANDCAMP