Beyond Hell - Sleeper Awakens (2010)

   Beyond Hell was a short lived but very promising side project of Elektrokutioner. That automatically means the style of early '90s death metal at it's best, and in case of Beyond Hell it's also embedded into great sound quality. 

   The New Wave of Old School Death Metal provided with loads of new bands and opportunities for old school nostalgia, but Beyond Hell was somehow extraordinary. That's partly because it was like how early '90s American death metal sounded in summary, but without copying any of the good old classics of the style. The main motivation remained: to create something quite heavy with the most suitable sound, that puts the preferred effects in focus. It's not an ingrained traditional style keep up like at the Swedish scene. That means there are no strict rules to bond the musician's hands, how it supposed to sound like, and that was also one of the main features of the old American death metal scene: more freedom, bigger diversity. The themes are quite characteristic and unified. The mix of simple, catchy riffs and short melodic, netherworldic, echoing solo themes making "Sleeper Awakens" enjoyable. They've built up the intensity by fast hammering, but slow downs are common, to put heaviness in focus. Deep growling is assisting to the music with sometimes nostalgic, horror inspired lyrics. The album has intense and demoralizing impression the same time. This mood/speed switch could define death metal quite well in general, and probably this is also the most effective sound of death. A very underrated masterpiece.