BEYOND SANCTORUM

"Beyond Sanctorum" is the second full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Therion. The album was released through Active Records in January 1992. It´s the successor to "Of Darkness..." from February 1991 and features one lineup change since the predecessor as bassist Erik Gustafsson has left the band. As no permanent replacement was found in time for the recording of the album, guitarists Christofer Johnsson and Peter Hansson share the bass recording duties on "Beyond Sanctorum".

While "Of Darkness..." predominantly featured re-recorded demo material from the late 80s/early 90s, "Beyond Sanctorum" features material written specifically for this album. Some of the songwriting ideas may have been in the making for years, but the audible thrash metal influences on the predecessor are pretty much gone from "Beyond Sanctorum", which at its core is a more pure old school death metal release. It´s a relatively adventurous and at times anarchistic old school death metal release though, and already this early on Therion also sporadically gave us a taste of their future gothic and symphonic metal influences (heard on the track "Symphony of the Dead" and on "Paths"). Another notable influence is Voivod and their dissonant twisted riff style, which is something Therion also use on occasion (heard on the track "Cthulhu").

So while "Beyond Sanctorum" is arguably an old school death metal release, it´s occasionally a relatively progressive one, and it´s loaded with creative songwriting ideas and stylistic elements that you won´t hear on many other contemporary Swedish death metal releases. The only other contemporary Swedish death metal act who was as innovative and progressive in their approach was Edge of Sanity (...and maybe Afflicted). It´s not always pretty, and it´s often delivered in a very raw and unpolished fashion (and somtimes features some pretty awkward but effective tempo changes and transitions between sections), but there´s no denying that Therion reach beyond the standards of old school Swedish death metal. Not that track lengths are the only parameters to decide if something is progressive but it´s still unusual to find an 11:05 minutes long song on an old school death metal release like "The Way".

"Beyond Sanctorum" features a raw, brutal, and powerful sounding production. There is an unhinged and almost chaotic nature to the album that´s greatly charming and the band are relatively well playing too. Johnsson´s growling vocals are quite varied and ranges from aggressive higher pitched snarling to abysmal growling (and everything in between). The vocals are definitely one of the great assets of the album.

Upon conclusion "Beyond Sanctorum" is a great end to Therion´s early old school death metal phase and definitely the peak of the early period of the band´s discography. They wouldn´t completely abandon their roots on the next couple of releases, but they soon started experimenting a lot with their sound and ultimately became something very different from what they are on this release. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).

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