Beyond Extinction: Triumph In The Face Of Tragedy
There is no correct way for a band to handle a member’s passing. Whatever decision they make, chiefly whether they continue or not, will always be understood and supported by their friends, family and fanbase. In 2023, Essex death metallers BEYOND EXTINCTION faced that very reality, when founding guitarist Zach Scott tragically took his own life at the age of just 20.
“The day after he died, we all said we needed to be together physically and immediately have those difficult conversations,” remembers vocalist Jasper Harmer. “We talked about the best way to deal with it, in both the long-and short-term, and one was to prioritise keeping ourselves busy. I think what helped saved us was that the band didn’t become associated with the trauma of the event; we became associated with the solution of how to continue.”
He does, understandably, admit he had no idea in that moment whether BEYOND EXTINCTION would have survived. “If you’d asked me at the time where I’d see myself in five years, the band absolutely wouldn’t have been a priority, and there were certainly isolated moments where it would have been easy to stop. However, none of us ever had that conversation – we all owed it to ourselves to keep going and, individually, refuse to be the guy that said ‘I can’t do this anymore’.”
Once they felt ready, Jasper – along with guitarist Jude Bennett and drummer Niall Ali – brought good friend Danny Russell in to fill Zach’s place. “He helped massively,” Jasper confirms. “We needed someone to step in with energy, enthusiasm and commitment from the get-go, and he was so reliable, understanding and mature, it did a lot for the rest of us.”
Jasper also confirmed that Zach had written and recorded material that ended up on Where They Gather, the band’s debut album. “There’s a lot of guitar parts that he wrote, but there’s a couple of songs where we repurposed and remixed his backing vocals from other released. That’s really cool because it’s so much more difficult to recognise his guitar playing, but having his voice on there is a real stamp of his contribution.”
The other big stamp is BEYOND EXTINCTION’s on the British extreme metal scene in the coming months. Where They Gather is a nasty, vicious album that has the potential to send them sky-rocketing, such is its nuclear delivery and deprived lyrical content. It’s set in a dystopian city inhabited by people just trying to survive at the end of humanity, and, as Jasper summises, is “a place where all my hate and repulsion have come to live”. Naturally, the healing process from Zach’s passing will have lent itself to the spite and bile that is unleashed, but Jasper also drew on his experiences of London, both in his capacity working for a homeless charity and as a hub of entertainment and pleasure.
“When I was in a more negative mindset, the tube train stopped being transport and started seeming like a horrible, underground prison; buildings went from office blocks to symbols of financial dominance and the constant flow of people transformed into liquid. So much of the physical landscape you’re in is reliant on your brain, and cities can brainwash people into a lifestyle that is unnatural and brutal on them.”
Brutal is also the perfect summary for Jasper’s own performance on the record; you can scarce believe the human body is able to produce such guttural vocal tones. “I reckon it’s down to my height,” he says with a smile. “I’m only five foot eight, so my centre of gravity is closer to hell and that means I can bring up more evil sounds!”
Jokes aside, BEYOND EXTINCTION have brought out one of the best metal records of the year and have just done their first shows outside of the UK, specifically in Ireland. There’s plenty in the pipeline for 2026 as well. “We’ve got one festival booked in next year and then more shows are in the works for the first half as well,” Jasper teases. “Nothing that I can really say at this moment in time, but as ever there’ll be nothing for a while and then it’ll come every day for a week, non-stop.”
And when they’re not ripping apart venues? You can often find them hanging out on the band’s Discord channel. “So many other bands I know have it,” explains Jasper, “and we started using it as a band organiser before deciding to open it up to other people. It gives people that opportunity to get away from the hell of Meta algorithms and onto a platform where we can all just speak, play quizzes and escape the world. We’ve got 70 people in it right now; I hope we hit 100 by the end of the year!”
Where They Gather is out now via self-release. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS125 here:
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