{"id":20469,"date":"2014-04-29T00:00:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T00:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=20469"},"modified":"2014-07-21T22:51:33","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T22:51:33","slug":"album-review-beneath-the-barren-throne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-beneath-the-barren-throne\/","title":{"rendered":"BENEATH – The Barren Throne (2014) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BENEATH
The Barren Throne<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nUnique Leader (2014)<\/span>
Rating: 7\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Armed with a new vocalist in Benedikt Natanael Bjarnason, Icelandic death metallers Beneath have returned with their sophomore outing The Barren Throne<\/em>. <\/p>\n

The album follows on from the 2012 Enslaved By Fear<\/em> debut, and opens with the acoustic strains of \u2018Depleted Kingdom\u2019 before the quintet explodes ravenously into a bludgeoning formula of melodic death metal. Extremely contemporary by design from its artwork through to its crisp percussion and ravaging yet crystal clear riffage, The Barren Throne<\/em> marks a significant progressive step for the band in that while remaining heavy and scathing, the overall framework which surrounds this beast is one of complexity yet nothing overtly bewildering. <\/p>\n

Beneath rarely settle on their laurels, combining rapid-fire drums (courtesy of Ragnar Sverrisson) with a jarring intensity. \u2018Depleted Kingdom\u2019 harbours frantic solos, a crushing bass backbone and above all the frenetic percussion that pretty much sums up modern day death metal. Thankfully, Bjarnason is more than capable of filling the shoes of G\u00edsli Sigmundsson, who had been with the band since their 2007 inception. Even so, there is nothing drastically different about Bjarnason\u2019s style; both are extremely guttural and very much no frills in their bellowing delivery, but it works all the same alongside those weighty riffs and rampant drums.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to hear elements of progression within the death metal fold nowadays \u2013 especially with the sudden transformation of pace \u2013 but the influences are always there to hear ranging from, say, Hate Eternal to some extent, maybe a dose of Decapitated Christ, and a hint of later Immolation. The album is immensely powerful for its duration and that will please fans of any decade of death metal \u2013 the riffs are huge, especially on the thunderous \u2018Chalice\u2019 with its belligerent drum style, and there\u2019s rarely a break for breath except for the unexpected chorus which has a sprig of black metal about it. <\/p>\n

There are 11 strong tracks on offer here, my favourites being the menacing trudge of \u2018Iron Jaw\u2019 with its lethal bass and lurch into annihilating speed. There\u2019s a shade of Hideous Divinity about some of the complex extremity and the brain-juddering fury of the title track alone should be enough to keep you happy, especially with its simmering intro and devastating assault via the hostile guitar sound and those choppy vocals. However, as with so many modern technical death metal acts, there is always a downside. Firstly, there is nothing on this album that stands out as being truly brilliant, despite the punishment dished out by the quintet. No, the songs don\u2019t just melt into one long ramble like some bands, but Beneath have yet to really find their feet within a genre that is spawning so many similar sounding bands. <\/p>\n

These guys are trying to do something slightly different and as pounding modern-day death metal acts go, The Barren Throne<\/em> is a worthy addition to any collection. With its all too typical computerised artwork and the rather predictable nature of its intricacy \u2013 if that\u2019s at all possible \u2013 however, I expect more next time round from Beneath because the current crop of death metal bands just don\u2019t have it in them to write classic material, so it would seem.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BENEATHThe Barren Throne Unique Leader (2014)Rating: 7\/10 Armed with a new vocalist in Benedikt Natanael Bjarnason, Icelandic death metallers Beneath have returned with their sophomore outing The Barren Throne. The album follows on from the 2012 Enslaved By Fear debut, and opens with the acoustic strains of \u2018Depleted Kingdom\u2019 before the quintet explodes ravenously into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1326],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-beneath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20469"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20473,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20469\/revisions\/20473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}