Band : Beyond The Labyrinth
Album title : Castles In The Sand
Label : None
Distributor : None
Release date : June 2008
Release : Demo recordings for upcoming album

If you're looking for some history-of-the-band story from this Ninove (Belgium) based quintet, check out the review I did on the band's debut album Signs (released by Incommunicado/ Rock Inc., thereview was posted 18/07/2006). In the meantime however, I've found some details to complete that story. Like it all started back in 1996, in '97 the band released a 3-track single titled Shine, and following a 2004 demo came the Signs album.

Thanks to the many guest appearances on that album the band got quite some attention from both the media and music industry (concert promotors), leading to opening shows for nternationally revered bands such as Doro, Jon Oliva, Riverside, Sonata Arctica, and more. However, due to the DIY ethics of the band, opportunities to get the band abroad were few and rare, and the band's forward movement started to stagnate.  Back with the release of the Signs album, band mastermind Geert Fieuw had already announced that the band would start demo recordings for their follow-up album Castles In The Sand (which was in reality already written as far back as 1997...the art-work was finished as far back as 2001) by the end of that same year (that's 2006, remember), but following a 9-month period of instability and line-up problems, Fieuw decided in August 2007 to take a step back and start working on the Castles In The Sand material from scratch. Thus, most of the existing tracks were revised, and Fieuw also wrote a couple of new ones (the piano-driven Pure Sabotage", thus called as a pun because new bassist Geert had heard the early demo, claiming it sounded like pure Savatage, dealing with the difficult 2007 period...and the more energetic "Draining My Energy" alluding to the fight to keep BTL on its musical course) and by the end of January this year working demos were finished...at which time the musicians came into play again, starting with the return of singer Jo De Boeck (who'd left in October 2006). Next to join were Imperia bassist Geert "Krenryg" Verstreken and newcomer drummer Bruno Goedhuys (formerly of Sengir, currently also playing with Doncker), and eventually keyboardist Danny Focke also returned to the fold.

The guys then rehearsed the material and re-recorded the stuff in raw demos (refinements and small changes may still happen on the arrangements), which they eventually sent us. In Fieuw's own words, the line-up changes have acted as a catalyst to tighten the sound, make it harder-hitting at times, even more dynamic and contrastful, and he used a broader range of influences than ever before, so classification should be even more difficult than ever! Personally (and without going back to the previous album or the band's contribution to the A Taste Of Belgium compilation...due to time restraints and a far-too-heavy job-load at the moment) I can't make out too many differences. The sound is still dominated by Jo De Boeck's somewhat limited but warm voice, and the general musical direction of the band is still a modern combination of Classic Rock with Neo-Classic/ Symphonic and Progressive influences and elements! Granted, what with the band now only having óne guitarist makes for a slightly less "filled" whole, which sure works to increase the contrasts between the moments where the guitar rules, or where the keyboard takes over primary role! To give you a whiff of the new material, the band posted the album closing track "No Place For A Dreamer" (or at least a preliminary demo) at myspace.com/beyondthelabyrinth (next to two tracks off the Signs album, and one of the 2004 demo), which ain't that much, but enough to "compare" differences and similarities.

During the rest of the year BTL will continue to work on refining the material, in the hopes that they may score a record deal to enable them to record the stuff in a decent studio (otherwize they'll be recording the thing themselves on a rather moderate budget). If nothing comes along, they'll be releasing the album themselves (like they actually did with the previous one as well), hoping to be available for live shows as of February 2009!

Can't wait to hear the finished product, and I'm anxious to see which courageous label will be picking them up...because BTL sure deserves to get a nice deal, finally!

90/100

Tony.