DUSTIN BEHM – The Beyond

DUSTIN BEHM - The Beyond
  • 7/10
    DUSTIN BEHM - The Beyond - 7/10
7/10

Summary

Rockshots Records
Release date: January 19, 2018

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Portland, Oregon native and Progressive Metal guitar wiz Dustin Behm is doing his part to help keep his home city weird on his debut solo album The Beyond. Featuring a baker’s dozen of layered Prog Metal instrumental tracks, with Behm handling not only the programming but playing guitar, EBow, bass and keyboards, The Beyond aims to take listeners somewhere interstellar and/or otherworldly. Behm’s love of horror and science fiction is evident in song titles like “Interdimensional Traveler” and “Haunted Labyrinth”, and also in the frenetic, alien shredscapes he creates. His rapid, icy riffs and spectral tone evokes the airless void of space on tunes like “The Beyond”; layers of guitar conjure mischievous spirits on “Poltergeist”, one of the standout tracks of the album. Metal guitar instrumental albums always run the risk of excessive noodling, but Behm finds a nice balance between the repetition and the trilling runs up and down the frets. Even better, when he does take off for the stratosphere, he does so in most cases with the intent of underscoring the central mood of the song rather than to just show off his considerable chops.

On “Genesis” there’s a nice section where the pound of the programmed drums fades away and there’s some space in the music where Behm throws off a tasteful run; it manages to capture the sense of new creation just as the song title implies. Although the guitar tones are different, there’s moments here where Behm’s angular, precise songcraft intersects the orbit of planet Voivod, perhaps most evidently on “Obelisk”. Repeated listening reveals the variety within what is a very singular Progressive vision.

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!

Author

  • Daniel Waters

    Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.

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