Band : Beyond The Labyrinth
Album title : Hidden Agenda / Stories Waiting To Be Told
Label : Private Release
Distributor : Beyond The Labyrinth – Concrete Web Promotion Office
Release date : December 2009
Release : Demo-single

Aha, part II in BTL’s work in progress towards their next album with two new songs…that’s more like it! The band recently issued an Organizer’s Toolkit, compiling a couple of older tracks alongside new track “Saturation Point” (review part one of A Work In Progress posted 26/10/2009) and the band’s videos on an additional DVD-R, and in the review I did for that (but which apparently never made, or was stripped from posting – wha’s this…censorship?) I mentioned that it’s better to bring new stuff on a regular basis, even if there’s a couple of months in between, than to invent additional means to stay in media people’s minds by putting their noses on the band’s old glories.

At any rate, the new single shows BLT from two sides. First, with opening track “Hidden Agenda”, in their usual “Contemporary Classic Rock” style. A cool guitar riff sustained by the wacky keyboard sounds, and Jo De Boeck’s signature vocal stylings on top! Quite a typical BLT track if ever there was one! Apparently, it is not a completely new track, since originally planned for a 2007 EP, which was never released as at the time the band had split up. Even then, mastermind Geert had been unhappy with the many compromises the song had befallen. During the album presentation of the Castles in the Sand album the band played the sons live, and this brought forth new questions about the song’s final destiny. The band had to promise to get it out on the 3rd album, re-viewed the original recording, and decided it could only be seen as a demo version. So, for the new recording Geert reworked the lyrics, keyboard arrangements and overall song approach. With “Stories Waiting To Be Told”, the band apparently brings a completely new song, and take on the semi-balladesque road…which is still with the usual hard edge anyway, you know! Nice track, which will do just fine for a calmer moment on a full-length album…once that’s put together! Check it out for yourselff by surfing to myspace.com/beyondthelabyrinth.

On Dec. 20, the band made the single available as a download through iTunes, and as a limited edition gatefold-packaged hard-copy through their own website beyond-the-labyrinth.com (at the home page of which you can see the “Hidden Agenda” video!). Well, I can hardly wait for PartIII of Chapter III – Stories’ “work in progress”!

92/100

Tony.