Customer Reviews

The White Beyond

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

ThouShaltNot might be considered a new age version of the Pet Shop Boys, sounding at times akin to Depeche Mode, with lush industrial and heavily layered beats, introspective and philosophical lyrics, and an amazing vocalist. This Philadelphia trio combines modern gothic and electronic music with orchestral ingenuity in an extremely danceable and catchy way! Though this album, as are other works by this group, is indeed a venerable nod to music of the 80's, ThouShaltNot adds their own flare making their musical style seem fresh and modern.

The fact that ThouShaltNot's musical style seeps into so many overlapping genres makes them easily accessible to fans of gothic, industrial, synthpop, and rock music, and this is their most accessible album yet. Not only are these three men excellent musicians, but the lyrical themes found in their music are highly emotional and intellectual in subject matter. Many of the lyrics heard on this album, as in their previous release "The Holiness of Now," are deeply religious and ruminative, forcing the listener to think and not just listen.

Alexx Reed's vocals hardly stray from a mid-range, mellow yet classy spoken word. Jeremy Long's piano, guitars and backing vocals, in addition to Aaron Fuleki's programming and percussion complement Alexx quite well. "The White Beyond" is most certainly a culmination of hard work from all of those involved, and shows advancement and refinement of this incredible group.

Some standout tracks:

Track 1: "Inside of You, In Spite of You" - Amazing opening track with extremely catchy lyrics. Just try to not get this song stuck in your head!

Track 4: "We Could Have Flown Like Pollen" - A great beat and emotional and introspective lyrics.

Track 6: "Glaciers" - Probably one of the more heavily electronic and industrial songs on the album. Highly energetic and danceable!

Track 10: "Trial by Fire" - Probably my favorite song on the album, and certainly one of the most accessible songs by this band. The lyrics are some that I'm sure everyone can relate to.

Track 12: "The White Beyond" - Epic lyrics combined with incredible instrumentals. Unfortunately, Alexx seems to be forcing some of the notes on this song and stretches his vocal range to its limits. A great song nonetheless!

This kind of raw emotion, combined with an absolutely incredible musical talent, is not often found in several of the bands producing music today, which makes this album and this group all that much more of a gem! Everyone should have a copy of this CD!

I don't ever write these, but I had to when I saw this title...I am a fan of all forms of synthpop, from early 80's to modern EBM, from Pet Shop Boys to De/Vision...there's been a shortage of modern synthpop of this quality lately, with weak cheezy releases by the likes of Apoptygma Berserk and Monofader and such (not that I don't like Apop, just don't feel like they are able to be taken too seriously)...if you're a fan of the more sophisticated synthpop, with the heart of VNV Nation, melodic talent of Tears for Fears and the complexity of Depeche Mode...this is a title that ranks with the best, though it doesn't seem the audience has recognized them, they need to be up there. It's that good.

I'm puzzled by the reviewer who claims that Holiness of Now is a superior album to this. Although Holiness is certainly a great album, after hearing The White Beyond, it is difficult to see even Holiness's best moments as anything but preludes to this.

The album opens with "Inside of You, In Spite of You," a driving number with lyrics that at once seem to evoke God ("I am the dawn of ages/I am the days seen through/I'm final entropy") and still fit into the genre of crazed stalker song ("I am in your future/I am in your past... I am inside of you, in spite of you"), all without once being offensive or polemical.

From that it moves to "Cardinal Directions," a song that fuses the band's apparent love of blippy 80s synth pop (It's main synth line sounds like it could have been lifted directly from a Mega Man game) with a harder rock sensibility. The first single off the album, and a fine one at that.

From there, we have "Come a Time," in which, faced with the rise of rap rock, ThouShaltNot asks "Why not do Goth Rap?" Upon inventing a genre, they promptly master it with this song, seemingly sung to the devil on the eve of the Apocalypse ("And when you're called to serve, will you have the nerve to do all that you know is wrong / Just to save your skin no matter which side wins, just to know that you were there all along / Is it better to reign in a world of pain then to serve a cause divine?")

Next is "We Could Have Flown Like Pollen," a song which could have been many lesser band's greatst work, but unfortunately comes off as one of this band's weaker songs.

After that, TSN shifts into ballad mode with the understated "The Ocean Is Your Voice." Even this slow ballad about a love affair in the rawest and most violent part of its end has a crescendoing intensity to it, however, making it one of the album's hidden gems.

The sixth track, "Glaciers," is a return to the energetic and catchy dance numbers that opened it - a trancy synth-driven number about the physicality of existance ("Taste the cells dividing / All to come and all that's been."). The song

On "100 Generations," the band shows the depth of their musical knowledge with a densely layered song that they describe on their website as containing "five guitars, four drumsets, four vocal parts (one of which is heavily layered), bass, a whisper track, and more synth than is really reasonable." It also, apparently, has a very subtle accordian line.

The next track, "The Insistence on Solid Floors," is a pallete cleansing instrumental number - nuanced and subtle.

Track nine, "G.L.M." may be the strangest track on the album - a fast-paced song sung with delightful hamminess, while its lyrics ground it in a very visceral sense of horror.

Following that is "Trial By Fire," an unabashedly poppy number with riffs that pay homage to Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" and Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People," while crafting their own sound. Despite its trashy and bouncy pop aspirations, the song still contains the band's trademark wordy philosophical ruminations ("I dust away the plaster / From off your breathing body / You're clutching your autonomy / You'll never be the same.")

After that, the album winds down with a pair of closely related songs. The first, "Song for the Dying," is a sprawling epic number that requires many listenings to really get to the subtlty of it. Still, even the first listen will bring a smile to your face with its brief homage to the Smashing Pumpkins' greatest hit.

The second, "The White Beyond," is even more epic, with a rich string backing, counterpointed by occasional dissonant drumming. The lyrics reach back across the album, evoking several of the previous tracks, and giving the album a real sense of reach and depth.

The final track, "(breathe again)," is another instrumental, providing a quiet counterpoint and musical resolution to the crashing end of "The White Beyond." It is not a song you will ever decide, "Hey, I think I'll give this a listen," but it fittingly ties off the album.

Anyone who wishes that Depeche Mode were just a bit harder will love this album. Actually, I take that back. Anyone with the remotest amount of taste will love this album.

Goth, as a genre, has been effectively dead in the water for years. On occasion a remarkable release like the Cranes' "Future Songs" or Ikon's "This Quiet Earth" will remind the world of the undead's insistence on, well, not being dead, but by and large, this is a style of music that has played itself out under the weight of its own 80's-indebted history.

Which brings me to ThouShaltNot's "The White Beyond," an album that both frames the darkwave, synthpop, and industrial satellites of gothicism in something of a retro homage, and also aggressively pushes the scene's stagnant sound palette to its limits and beyond, experimenting with a sound that is at once more grandiose and less pretentious than anything in the memory of our collective subculture. This record, tinged with industrial expirementalism and artschool flair, manages to convince the listener -- any listener, goth or not -- of its dire and epic subject matter in a mode almost entirely devoid of irony. Though the song "G.L.M." is a snarky and fleeting nod to electroclash, the 12 other songs use electronics to convey a heartfelt and approachable exegesis on life and death. That no one has really done this since Depeche Mode's "Songs of Faith and Devotion" infuses the entire experience with the feeling of newness.

The best songs on the album are "Inside of You, In Spite of You," "100 Generations," and "Song for the Dying," which find Alexx Reed, Aaron Fuleki, and Jeremy Long at their most vulnerable and least derivative. While other songs like "Glaciers" or even the swaggering mythic "Trial By Fire" could be mistaken for the work of another band (perhaps Beborn Beton or even Deadsy), they contribute to the totality of The White Beyond in a way that highlights the pristine, almost too flowing arrangement of the songs.

Reed's lyrics are at once skyward looking and introspective as he searches for the past ("Cardinal Directions"), love ("The Ocean Is Your Voice"), and God ("The White Beyond"), and it is in combining these perspectives with the subject matter they illuminate that ThouShaltNot's album positions itself as something of a culmination of a genre in its final recession. Perhaps this is overstating the CD's significance, but if not a culmination, then it is certainly a grand-scaled send-off for the scene. Though it bears flaws (namely, never quite rocking full-out in the way that it seems to crave), The White Beyond is the point at which the likelihood of a goth band making any kind of a new statement while so exquisitely tying up the loose ends of the genre's past approaches zero.

Buy this album, I insist. It may be the last gothic CD you'll ever need.

I first saw Thou Shalt Not playing at Dracs Ball in philly. I was AMAZED at the big sound these three men make. For such a small group, they put out music that doesnt belittle your intelligence, that you can dance to, and it sounds like a band of at least 4-5 members. To add to it, the band members are increibly nice and kind to their fans. I bought this CD there and listen to it over and over. I have yet to grow tired of it and it has been MONTHS. The lead singer puts so much emotion into his voice that you can feel the air waver.
I very much recomend this CD!

I bought this CD after hearing "Cardinal Directions". I was a little disappointed, since Cardinal Directions is a different kind of song from the rest of the tracks. It's not that any of the other songs are bad. They just aren't what I was after. Cardinal Directions is infectious. I can't just play it once. I have to play it over and over.

Truly an album that stands alone and above the trite bs that most big labels are pushing these days. Thoushaltnot manages to work the entire CD into a single piece while still keeping each song fresh and powerful in its own right. Not a small feat. Though I first picked up this CD and started listening to it, at their show in at their DC concert in aug 2004 over 10 months later I still have it playing in my car.

There's a few songs on this album that are very good, especially Cardinal Direction, which is a great throwback to 80's synth rockers like New Order. There's just something that makes me not really care for this album that much, and I can't put my finger on it. It's almost overdone. Maybe too much production, too much technicality or the fact that some songs just go off on a tangent and become boring. There's nothing on here that really grabs me, but yet I don't absolutely hate it. It sounds like they were trying to make a record that would appeal to the masses. Comparing TSN to Depeche Mode is absurd---Depeche Mode are gods, and are my favorite band, and I can no way say with sound mind that this sounds anything like DM. This lacks the charismatic vocals and effortless melancholy gloom that made DM so great. This is more like a better version of the Faint. I don't particularly care for the lyrical subject matter either, it's kinda just there. A lot like the rest of the album. The vocals are ok, I don't really get how people go on and on about how great the singer is, but to each his own, I guess. Sometimes there's just way too much stuff going on in the songs. I think in some cases, simpler is better. Take bands like Kraftwerk or OMD, for example, and listen to how simply structured their songs are. I've noticed with many genres of music, from synth rock to death metal, that too much technicality makes for boring music, and this falls somewhat into the same trap, but not quite as badly. All in all, this is an average album, but it leaves me wanting something more.

I bought this CD because I took interest in the song "Cardinal Directions", which was on a compilation CD of mine. This turned out to be a very, very good thing! I love this CD, the singer's voice, the introspective and intellectual lyrics, the all-around danceability! My favorites are "Inside of You, In Spite of You", and "We Could have Flown Like Pollen". Absolutely ingenious!

This CD is flawless.

I hesitate to try a song-by-song exegesis, and others have done that before me here I think. . . Even considering the album in its fullness moves me past tears. I have left this cycle on repeat for days at a time, never pausing for a second to get bored or wish a different song were playing. From beginning to end (and back to the beginning, with a perfectly seamless transition between the first and last track) one songs flows into the next without break or breath. If the songs did not stand alone with such strength, one might be almost inclined to think of this entire album as a single breathing living organism of a work in several movements, so tight is the linkage between each song with common lyrical and musical ties between them.

And the themes! -- religious, philosophical, intriniscally sensual and physical intimate ("do you feel the blood divide beneath your skin?") , revolutionary in their perspective on relationships -- the music and words redefining the connections between spirit and body, soul and spirit, lover to lover, creator and created, god and earth and self... (The idea of deity as syntax -- that which defines the barriers of our reality -- shook my worldview with its appeal to Egyptian and Hindu ideas of god and self as breath, and the simultaneous adherence to scientific theories of mind)

The sentiments present themselves with a great deal of intelligence and with a strong literary and metaphorical flair, but for all that they remain precisely relevant and personal and accessible at a deep level that some of Alexx's previous work was not. I was blown away by the first two albums, but there was a degree to which their chimerical, riddling quality did not easily open itself to the listener and remained locked in its own puzzlebox. With this album, the puzzlebox opens a little -- I wasn't just blown away, I was also brought back to my inner self and to a sense of the world that most albums never begin to create for their listeners.

Musically? It's charming and moving -- energetically danceable and melodically heartbreaking by turns, full of fire and a unique blend of genres that is unmistakeable. It defines a momentous collision of goth and folk and classical and pop and occasionally rapidfire rhythmic word which never falls into the stereotypes and annoyances of most modern rap. This is an intelligent, educated, experimental album that never seems elitist or unaccessible. The production is polished and complete, and Alexx has an incredible voice.

I wish it were possible, just once, to give an Amazon review that had more than five stars. There are many albums I would give a five star rank to -- but if only once in my life I were allowed to give six stars, I would choose this album to bestow it upon. That anyone would consider a 1 star review feasible, especially if they had even vaguely appreciated Holiness of Now, is incomprehensible to me!