Beyond the Pale “Monument in Time”
“Monument in Time” is a terrific debut EP by promising Dutch extreme metal band Beyond the Pale.
Formed in Utrecht, The Netherlands in 2020, Beyond the Pale was hit with disaster when in 2022 guitarist and co-founding member Jeroen van Donselaar died on stage from cardiac arrest halfway through the band’s debut show. Following that shock start, the band decided to solider on in his honour and recruited Geoffrey Maas (formerly of Martyr) as his replacement. The rest of the band is drummer Johnny Derechos, bassist Frank van Boven, guitarist Boudewijn de Kraaij and vocalist Janneke de Rooy. Janneke is fabulous. Her growls are like a cross between Dani Filth (Cradle of Filth), Steve Zetro Souza (Exodus) and Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy) with a pinch of Linda Blair in the movie “The Exorcist” thrown into the mix. “Monument in Time” is an uncompromising six-track EP filled with filthy metal. Love it. This is heavy and fast yet melodic metal while the vocals are angry and pissed off. It’s thrashy death metal. Five of the six tracks are sung in English while the excellent “Storm en Drift” is delivered in Dutch. I love that a new band puts out a killer six-track EP rather than a full-length with a couple of fillers. This is a promising debut by an interesting Dutch band. It is a rough diamond of the best kind. The production is less polished than recent output by bigger bands in the extreme metal space. There is raw aggression in the songwriting and delivery. That is paired with a fabulously old-school production. That is all good because this type of music shouldn’t be too polished.
Beyond the Pale’s debut EP “Monument in Time” is out now.
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