BEYOND THE BRIDGE — The Old Man And The Spirit (review)

BEYOND THE BRIDGE — The Old Man And The Spirit album cover Album · 2012 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Warthur
Beyond the Bridge play a brash and boisterous style of prog metal littered with technical flourishes but with tight enough compositions to avoid degenerating into tedious showboating. They may be all flash, but there's also a bit of substance to them, with Christopher Tarnow and Simon Obrender's keyboard interjections in particular managing to be simultaneously showing whilst remaining consistent with the mood the band are aiming for.

As the title implies, we're looking at a concept album revolving around an encounter between the titular old man and the titular spirit, who are played by vocalists Herbie Langhans and Dilenya Mar respectively. Mar's vocals, in particular, are a real treat, but both of them share the spotlight effectively and help get across the theatrical and narrative aims of the album. Apparently, Mar only joined the band in 2008, after they'd already been toiling away for 9 years (the first 6 of which under the name of Fallout), but she's clearly the missing link which made their sound really come together.

The band also show fine judgement in crafting the lyrics - rather than artificially working in lyrics for both singers in each song, instead each singer gets two or three solo songs each: Mar's solo songs consist of the Spirit's attempts to convey secret knowledge to the Old Man, whilst Langhan's take place before the Spirit arrives and after the Spirit abandons the Old Man to his fate. As well as showing sufficient maturity to allow the requirements of the music and narrative to guide their performances rather than demanding rigorously equal spotlight time, this also means that we get an idea of each vocalist's capabilities outside of the context of the more conversational songs. I don't know how the band intend to follow this up - will their next album feature another male and female character in conversation, or will they find a different way to exploit their dual vocalist situation? - but I'll be interested to see what they do, since whilst this is otherwise fairly everyday stuff the two-vocalist experiment could really pay off if they can find the right vehicle for it.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like A Life Vest As The Night Wept Mathcore
FRONTIERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Future Ghost - Wolves (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Future Ghost - Nemesis Game (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Sunmancer - Realms of Dilemma (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
Sunmancer - Lower Cavalier (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed