2006-07-12
Don’t be fooled by the clean guitar on the opener of this album, “In the arms of agony”, for as the monitor beeping suggests – this has something to do with death; it’s a melodic death metal album, starting from the second track “Behind the mask” we get the basic idea of what this album is about to sound like.
Bhelliom was formed in 2000, as a heavy metal band, and released a self-titled demo later on. Their former vocalist passed away in a car accident (perhaps this links to the monitor beeping in the opener) and they decided to take things in a different direction, to a closer to melodic death metal one – with their bass player Joe on vocals; this proved to be a good decision since Joe has the perfect growl for this kind of music, similar to that of early
Arch Enemy vocalist Johan Liiva or late-era
Carcass vocalist Jeff Walker.
This album is an independent release, so it is quite understandable that it wouldn’t be perfect in terms of sound – this explains the sometimes-too-crispy drum sound and the wrongfully chosen guitar sound for the second guitar.
The sound seems to be the only problem with this album, since it pretty much does what it needs to do well, and even infuses some lite-stoner elements through some of the guitar solos the riffs (a good example for this is the thrashing “Illucination” and the
Black Sabbath-ish “Sky high under the influence” where Ozzy’s voice would have fitted perfectly).
Sure, this isn’t very original, but it is a quick jab to all those over-produced/over-appreciated deathcore albums. We’re actually missing bands like Bhelliom, who stands in the verge of Swedish death metal, kinda the early era of
In Flames,
Soilwork and
Dark Tranquillity.
“Within Nowhere” would become the album diehard fans of this band (in years to come, if all goes well and they’ll release more albums) would love and remember as a masterpiece which won’t be re-created - even though it can’t be considered as one; this would have been the case if this album would have been released 8 or 9 year ago.
The title track, “Within Nowhere”, ends this album and leaves thoughts that more work is needed to prefect this band – in terms of sound and in terms of infusing the stoner and the melodic death with more homogeneity – and I’m sure I won’t be the only one keeping an eye on them.
Ofer Vayner
