Eric Grubbs
Risen From The Ashes Of A Metal Band Featured On An MTV Show Years Ago, Beyond Sleep Is Starting Big With This Complex And Rowdy Track.
Welcome to Song of the Day, where we hip you to all the new local releases you should be caring about. By highlighting one new North Texas-sprung tune every week day, our hope is that you’ll find something new to love about the rich and abundant DFW music scene five days a week.
Beyond Sleep – “Enemy Lines”
RIYL: needing a good early morning wake-up call
What else you should know: There was a time when a Dallas-based metalcore band called A Dozen Furies had a lot of heat behind them. As the winners of an MTV reality competition show called Battle for Ozzfest, the band released a full length in 2005 through the acclaimed Sanctuary Records. But things never really took off for the band, unfortunately.
Now all these years later, two of its former members — vocalist Bucky Garrett and drummer
Mike Miller — are “coming back with our bullshit” in a new band called Beyond Sleep.
Last month, they released a three-song self-titled EP and its opening cut, “Enemy Lines,” is today’s Song of the Day.
There is plenty of metal here, along with hardcore stylings – all done with an interpretation of the kind of production you’ve heard on Killswitch Engage and All That Remains albums. It’s slick and heavy, and “Enemy Lines” takes some great rhythmic and melodic turns.
The clenched, screaming vocals go great over fast beats and the occasional blast beats. “Enemy Lines” recalls Carcass without having to look up all these medical terms found in a lab. The verses lead to a Pantera-like pre-chorus and then a Cave In-like chorus. With a great blend of screams and clean vocals, there is a lot going on here.
“Riff Salad” is pejorative for songs done by bands that throw in a lot of complex riffs but rarely make something cohesive. It’s really a kitchen-sink approach that can attract people who think the more precise and technically challenging, the better something is. Well, that’s not always the case. If you want repeat listens, you gotta give the listener something to sink their teeth into.
There are a lot of complicated riffs in “Enemy Lines,” but Beyond Sleep definitely knows when to let things rip and when to hold back and let some melody give everyone some levity.