ALBUM REVIEW: Where They Gather – Beyond Extinction
With an average age of 25, two EPs to their name and countless treks across the UK, BEYOND EXTINCTION have traversed through the highest of highs and lowest of lows on the three years since they started writing music for their debut album, Where They Gather. And if this is your first introduction to the band, then by God, you’ve caught them at their best.
Opening the album is Bodies At The Gates, an uncomfortable siren wailing across winds and radio chatter, then Where They Gather takes you out without warning. Niall Ali’s double bass assault. Dual guitarists Danny Russell and Jude Bennett’s guitars are razor sharp, and Jasper Harmer’s revolting vocal abilities overwhelm you as you struggle to comprehend what’s going on. You’re listening to three years of work, pain and nihilism. loosely a concept album based on the last bastion of human life on earth as cities have crumbled and we’re forced to endure the harsh realities that await us.
With each song feeding into the next, it’s a piece of work that’s needed to be heard in one listen. No skips, no individual tracks, just sit there and hear the calamity crash around you. Traitors To The Ropes is as vile as the name suggests. Ali bludgeons you relentlessly with his drumming, taking small breaks here and there giving you minimal time to breathe before the rest of the album unfolds with Harmer spitting venom with every word he growls and screeches, unleashing built up hurt and anguish in this bleak dystopian coup de grâce.
He’s not alone on the album either, as Alex Teyen from BLACK TONGUE features on Tyranny adding even more chaotic layers to the song, and Josh Davies from INGESTED pops up on Apache hitting impressive highs that make you wince. Not that Harmer needs these guest spots, his vocals are absurd in his own right and hits lows that most deathcore vocalists these days can only dream of hitting.
No strangers to evolving their sound, BEYOND EXTINCTION have taken their tried and tested formula of down tuned deathcore and added dashes of hardcore throughout the album to eye-opening surprise as they blend the genre seamlessly into their own twisted world of unbridled destruction. Bennett and Russell perform their guitar duties with laser precision on the slow chugs alongside Ali‘s drumming on Winter Sun which was written by Russell prior to him joining the band, who loved it that much they didn’t change any of it. Most of the riffs on the album, however, would not have been possible without founding member and guitarist Zach Scott, who sadly passed away in 2023. His memory lives on not only in the album as it is dedicated to him, but in the roots of BEYOND EXTINCTION themselves.
For a quartet that has only been in the scene since 2018, they’ve made huge strides in the deathcore world, sharing stages with the likes of SIGNS OF THE SWARM and TO THE GRAVE, Where They Gather is a vital, visceral piece of deathcore from the Essex group that has set the bar for modern day-downtuned deathcore. At the moment, no one is like them, but you can bet that everyone will want to be them.
Rating: 8/10
Where They Gather is set for release September 26th via self-release.
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