The Cold Beyond - Deathbed Revelation (2003)

During the late 90's, The Cold Beyond (originally known as Dead by Morning) was one of the most vehement, bloodthirsty and hate filled musical entities within the American mid-west. Specifically stationed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; The Cold Beyond played live often and released two demos and a single of raw, high speed, violent and sometimes even depressive black metal during their original tenure ('98-'00), but dissolved in the early months of the new millennium without recording a full-length album. Sometime in 2001 The Cold Beyond arose again, but as just the solo project of guitarist, Asylum's. In 2001 another demo saw light and the last musical document from The Cold Beyond was this debut album, 'Deathbed Revelation,' released in 2003.

Under Asylum's direction the band continued onwards producing music in an industrial direction that was much akin to the Thorns debut, Dødheimsgard's, '666 International' and Satyricon's, 'Rebel Extravaganza' releases. This short thirty four minute release features industrial vibes, odd synthetics, programmed drums, samples, strange song arrangements, melodic guitar riffs and both black metal styled screams as well as those with extensive effects placed on them. Upon first listen the album probably wont make much of an impression, but I've found that after numerous spins I've come to really enjoy this release and I've often times noticed characteristics which eluded me earlier. Songs like, 'Liberate the Flesh' and 'Intellectual Tempering' stand out with their interesting guitar work, while, 'Skin Packaging' and the title track are memorable due to their twisted unorthodox sound. While its true, the album shows its influences entirely too well and if you had no love for those releases mentioned above then you'd be unlikely to get much out of this release either. However, if you've longed for more industrial tinged black metal then surely this is a release worth hunting down.

After this album, Asylum buried The Cold Beyond once again, but in mid-2010, original vocalist and founder, Sithicus revived The Cold Beyond as his solo project with plans to re-release the old demos under the album name, 'Deadspeak,' while a new full-length recording called, '...And then the darkness came' is also in the works.