| CD REVIEW Beyond The Labyrinth |
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Band: Beyond The Labyrinth In the past Beyond The Labyrinth was rather an entity known to a restricted amount of people (fervent fans nevertheless) into ‘70s Classic Rock with progressive tendencies. The quintet around guitarist/ mastermind Geert Fieuw had never let its presence on the Belgian scene been felt quite clearly, playing but a scarce amount of gigs per year (their top year so far was 2006, when they played 11 gigs…three of which were nevertheless festivals, another a support to Riverside…but spread out over the 12 months of that year)! Last year things changed slightly. First of all, they got in contact with a nice (or how else would yoù talk about your own editor-in-chief) guy with some ties in the Belgian music industry, and he earnestly tried to get them signed to the label he works at. But no dice…in spite of the obvious qualities of the band, the label didn’t see any immediate profit in the genre the band plays. Big mistake, I’d say, because with the backing of that label the band could’ve forced their internatonal breakthrough! Of course there’s always the couple of short-sighted music “journalists” (amateurs which got the job of reviewing the album through the shortsightedness of their editor-in-chief, people with no more insight into music in general than the sub-genres they happen to be very strongly into, slashing anything that stands outside those fields) who’ll bring the negative reviews, but overall the reception of the album has been rather positive (check out the links posted in the blogs at the band’s MySpace page), in some cases even rather enthousiastic!!! Anyways, having already gotten us at Concrete Web acquainted with the material for their upcoming album through a sent pre-production promo-CD (on which Fieuw handled guitars as well as keyboards), the band went ahead anyway, re-recording their album with the full band (all keyboard parts now filled in by Danny Focke) and giving the recordings a fuller end sound! Under the guidance of their promotion agent, the band delivered iTunes single for the track Time To Fly and had it sent out to radio stations all over the country (the song was edited to fit radio requirements) in order to make people aware that a new BTL album was about to be unleashed upon them! Ány promotion is good promotion, as they say, so here’s yet another single (again distributed through iTunes) to keep interest in the band goin’. Again sent out to radio stations across the country, who’ll certainly be airing it soon enough! Special about this release, is that the title track was actually chosen by fans to be the next single through the band’s MySpace page! It’s no surprise to me that the fans picked out “Pure Sabotage” though, as it is easily one of the most rrecognizable, catchiest songs on the Castles In The Sand album! Again, to make it more easily acceptable for airplay, Geert has edited the song from an original length of 3:47 to that of 3:25, and that by cutting out the second guitar solo (which was contributed to the album version by Fredéric Ost). Although I like the original version too, I have to say that as a result the song is now more streamlined, and more to the point! Overall more catchy, if you see what I mean? And to make things a bit more interesting this time around, Geert has also added an “Electric” version of the song “For Eternity”. On the album version the guitar solo towards the end was done with a classical, acoustic guitar…but on the original version (on the demo-CD) that solo was actually done with electric guitar. To tell you the truth, I’ve no idea whether the guitarist used the original version of the track, giving it the extra boost of mastering to get a fuller sound, or whether he’s used the album recordings, replacing his acoustic solo with the electrified one…but does that really matter? Fact is you, the fan, get a new version of the track as a bonus, isn’t it? You can listen to the tracks off bóth singles at myspace.com/beyondthelabyrinth (where you’ll still also find the band’s classic track “In Flanders Fields”, as well as a medley of the new album and the band’s 2006 radio single “Tomorrow Is Gone” – taken off their 2005 debut full-length album Signs), and the video for the radio edit of the new single’s title track is also posted! Yeah, 2009 is the year in which BTL is slowly working itself up from the restricted Underground to which they belonged in the past, playing more shows in front of a bigger audience! Thus far, the band has only played once in promotion of their new album (at Verviers’ Spirit Of 66 in late Nov. of last year), but as you will be able to see from the band’s calendar, there’s already a few very interesting gigs lined up in the near future…the most interesting being the band’s support of Threshold for their gigs at De Pul in Uden (Holland), Biebop in Vosselaar (Belgium), and De Kade in Zaandam (again Holland) one May 1 to 3 respectively. It won’t be the first time the band played in Holland, as they’ve been there a couple of times before, but they never played support for such an important band. A couple of gigs which should certainly bring them a shit-load of new fans, as will the gig on March 22nd at The Rock Temple in Kerkrade (again Holland), where the boys will play support to Pure Inc and Serenity! As an insider to privileged info, I can tell you that BTL is lined up as support to yet another internationally renowned act in the near future, but at this moment nor the band, nor we, are at liberty to divulge the name of that band, or the date of the gig! On the other side, the band will be playing in Germany (April 16, in Frankfurt, and with Quantum Fantay…with whom they have other gigs planned too) for the first time in their career…another step forward to a more European following!!! Yes, I think we can safely say that 2009 certainly looks like the busiest year yet in the career of this noteworthy band! And deservedly so too, because the guys have been working towards it long enough. I mean, it’s always difficult for a Belgian band to get anywhere at all, even when you’re following trends…and it can’t be said that BTL have chosen the easiest way…but luckily the members have held on, even reformed after having split up! They’ve already shown an endurance to continue “above and beyond” the “call of duty”, and with their track record, BTL already belongs in the book of “Belgian Cult Bands”! Let’s only hope that this cult band may bring us a couple more albums more, eh!? They sure have my personal benediction!!! Euhrmm…as this is a single, taken from the album, I won’t rate this release! But you díd understand by my ranting how positive I feel about this, didn’t you? Tony. |