UMUR "Beyond Sanctorum" is the second full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Therion. The album was released through Active Records in January 1992. It´s the successor to "Of Darkness..." from February 1991 and features one lineup change since the predecessor as bassist Erik Gustafsson has left the band. As no permanent replacement was found in time for the recording of the album, guitarists Christofer Johnsson and Peter Hansson share the bass recording duties on "Beyond Sanctorum".

While "Of Darkness..." predominantly featured re-recorded demo material from the late 80s/early 90s, "Beyond Sanctorum" features material written specifically for this album. Some of the songwriting ideas may have been in the making for years, but the audible thrash metal influences on the predecessor are pretty much gone from "Beyond Sanctorum", which at its core is a more pure old school death metal release. It´s a relatively adventurous and at times anarchistic old school death metal release though, and already this early on Therion also sporadically gave us a taste of their future gothic and symphonic metal influences (heard on the track "Symphony of the Dead" and on "Paths"). Another notable influence is Voivod and their dissonant twisted riff style, which is something Therion also use on occasion (heard on the track "Cthulhu").

So while "Beyond Sanctorum" is arguably an old school death metal release, it´s occasionally a relatively progressive one, and it´s loaded with creative songwriting ideas and stylistic elements that you won´t hear on many other contemporary Swedish death metal releases. The only other contemporary Swedish death metal act who was as innovative and progressive in their approach was Edge of Sanity (...and maybe Afflicted). It´s not always pretty, and it´s often delivered in a very raw and unpolished fashion (and somtimes features some pretty awkward but effective tempo changes and transitions between sections), but there´s no denying that Therion reach beyond the standards of old school Swedish death metal. Not that track lengths are the only parameters to decide if something is progressive but it´s still unusual to find an 11:05 minutes long song on an old school death metal release like "The Way".

"Beyond Sanctorum" features a raw, brutal, and powerful sounding production. There is an unhinged and almost chaotic nature to the album that´s greatly charming and the band are relatively well playing too. Johnsson´s growling vocals are quite varied and ranges from aggressive higher pitched snarling to abysmal growling (and everything in between). The vocals are definitely one of the great assets of the album.

Upon conclusion "Beyond Sanctorum" is a great end to Therion´s early old school death metal phase and definitely the peak of the early period of the band´s discography. They wouldn´t completely abandon their roots on the next couple of releases, but they soon started experimenting a lot with their sound and ultimately became something very different from what they are on this release. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

siLLy puPPy THERION released its collection of demos as a debut album called “Of Darkness” in 1991 but realized the outdated material had no chance of breaking through the already crowded Swedish death metal market so immediately began work on the followup BEYOND SANCTORUM which came out the following year. While still rooted in the Stockholm death metal scene which stemmed from the hardcore punk scene more so than the American Tampa style, BEYOND SANCTORUM continues the rawness of the debut that employed a buzzsaw guitar tone, down-tuned guitar riff attacks along with the incessant tempos, blastbeats and tortured vocal guttural growls.

BEYOND SANCTORUM however expanded the band’s generic qualities by adding some of the nascent elements that would continue to expand until it would become a major pioneer of the world of symphonic metal. First of all the composiitons on BEYOND SANCTORUM are much more diverse and offer both progressive rock and classical music perspective in how some of the tunes are laid out. Added to that the band added keyboards to create cold atmospheres as well as scant use of female vocals and some Persian folk music, both of which would become major staples of the band’s sound once they reinvented themselves.

This was also the point where THERION evolved past the by then cliche themes of morbidity, horror and gore and zombie apocalypse type material and ventured into the occult with particular emphasis on H.P. Lovecraft writings although at this point the growls are still pretty much unintelligible so they could be singing about American housewives having Tupperware parties in the 1950s and no one would know the difference but nevertheless the focus on the more esoteric subject matter is what would transmogrify THERION from a run of the mill death metal band to the innovative orchestrated symphonic metal band that would launch them into the limelight as one of the true innovators of metal music.

“Of Darkenss” was really a one trick pony which resulted in well performed old school death metal however none of the tracks really stood out. Of course it really was a collection of demos from the 1987-89 timeline and found inspiration from the most nascent sounds of the scene. On BEYOND SANCTORUM that has been corrected as the song structures are much more varied and experimental. There are moments of slower doom metal, more time signature deviations as well as unexpected deviations from the norm. While not quite considered a tech death metal, THERION was well on their way to crafting truly complex music that would grow incrementally on the following albums. Likewise the guitar solos avoid the Morbid Angel squeals and innovate some truly out of the box displays of creativity.

The true leap of progressiveness is fully realized on the eleven minute “The Way” which wends and winds through many different riff changes and chord progressions but firmly remains in the context of highly aggressive Swedish death metal. The addition of the keyboard sounds and other surprises makes this the most compelling track of the album. Guitar riff tradeoffs and some of the guitar gallops of later THERION fame also debut here. Overall BEYOND SANCTORUM is a great leap forward for THERION that engages in a much more diverse range of sounds. The early traces of female operatic vocals are briefly introduced on “Paths” and the attention to detail makes this one a much more interesting death metal experience than the debut although it’s basically rooted in the same old school death metal sounds.

Warthur After producing a succinct summary of their early work on Of Darkness, the first true Therion studio album - that is, the first one to be conceived as an album and containing material more or less contemporary to its recording, rather than songs they'd already worked over for years before they entered the studio - is a clear notch above its predecessor, incorporating a broader range of influences than you might otherwise expect into their brutal death metal framework but, unlike on later albums, rigorously translating them into death metal terms rather than indulging in more direct cross-genre fertilisation. If you don't want brutality, don't come a-knocking, but if you like hard-edged death metal with hidden smarts it's not a bad choice.