Band : Beyond The Labyrinth
Album title : Time To Fly
Record label : Own Release
Distributor : Concreteweb Promotion Office – LSP - Bertus
Release date : November 2008
Release : cd-R single

Following a short time of incertainty, during which this truly fine Belgian Contemporary Classic Rock act (I’ve always prefered to give ‘em the additional classification of Prog Rock) were contacted by a Belgian A&R man from an important (major) record label, who shopped the raw mixes of the band’s newest album Castles In The Sand (reviewed by yours truly posted 06/08/2008) to the label’s executive levels…only to find out they were not interested (whot? are they nuts? hav’ they gone complétely bonkers? All of these questions to be answered freely by the readers)!

Weary of having their hopes crushed, the band is now releasing the album on their own Incommunicado label on November 30th, when the band will also present their album through a gig at Verviers’ Spirit Of 66 club. The thing is, I should’ve posted this very review much earlier, but the impossible workload has prevented me from decently checking the info before, so…back to the other thing: The band has organized a bus to pick up people (against a fair fee, I’m sure, for more info contact the band through their MySpace page) starting at Geraardsbergen with stops at Ninove (BTL headquarters) and Leuven.

The Time To Fly (Radio Edit) single (which differs slightly from the original version in being reduced from 4 minutes to 3:33 – which is apparently the “acceptable” length for radio play) was distributed to all Belgian radio stations (with the help of Concrete Web, by the way) halfway November, and can be listened to at myspace.com/beyondthelabyrinth. The band would like to ask for your hellp in getting the song played on national radio station Studio Brussel’s programme De Afrekening (again, check out the blogs on the MySpace page).

Personally, I’m somewhat taken aback with the above unmentioned label refusing to sing on BTL, because I feel that THIS kind of Rock at least can count on a steady fanbasis in our country (both Dutch and French speaking parts), and the fact that BTL were refused only sshows how little these manager-type label executives still have a feel for the kind of music which is still viable in our country besides local Pop!

Since having reviewed the album, I’ve been able to listen to it once again, and I have to say the songs were still firmy stuck in memory…in fact, I had a hard time sitting quietly in my chair during that much appreciated extra listening session! II would like to take this occasion therefore, to raise my initial rating of the album by 3 points to

93/100

Tony.