The fact that Beneath The Sky is on Victory Records made me doubt a little bit about the heaviness of the band but the description “extreme death metalcore” soon made up for that. The band hails from Cincinnati and plays a kind of music that’s fairly different from what I’ve ever heard on Victory. BTS is said to be compared to the likes of Carcass, Hypocrisy, Shadows Fall and Killswitch Engage and with What Demons Do To Saints they’ve released their debut full-length. 

 

In my opinion the “extreme death” part of the music is predominantly created by vocalist Joey Nelson. His screams are really nasty and remind me a bit of those of The Agony Scene’s Mike Williams. And although both vocalists handle this nasty screaming almost constantly throughout the album, there’s also some space left for melodic (backing) vocals. Personally I do not consider that to be a bad thing but I do have to say that the melodic parts on this album are quite the opposite of the screams. So for that aspect, Caliban might cross ones mind as well while listening to Beneath The Sky.

 

A track in which both the nasty and melodic vocals are clearly present is ‘A Grave Mistake’, which is also available on their MySpace. I think the heavy and soft parts are pretty well-balanced in this song but in addition to that I gotta say this song isn’t that representative for the entire album since most songs do not contain that much melody. Another great song to check out is ‘7861’, which is just a great song full of nasty, almost gargling, screams and the right dose of melody.

 

Next to the vocals and the brutal double bass parts, there’s this thing called a keytar. Normally that wouldn’t really convince me but on this album it sure adds something to the music, giving the overall atmosphere on the album a pretty dark feeling. It became very clear to me that the music definitely represents the Demons feeling from the album title but looking at the lyrics, you’ll probably understand the Saints side of the band as well. Quite a well-chosen album title I’d say!

 

All in all Beneath The Sky has unleashed a great debut album upon the world which convinced me to go see them live one day. It’s a pity that the last couple of songs on the album are little weaker than the rest of ‘em (especially the melodic parts sound a little too melodic) but the overall result surpassed that status of “decent”. Fans of extreme (death) metalcore bands such as The Agony Scene should definitely give this a try!