ThouShaltNot - The White Beyond

List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $5.31
You Save: $11.67 (69%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.31 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases

Music CD Cover

Free Music Notes for The White Beyond

Free Music Review: Their Breakthrough Album
Hit: 5 Stars

The album opens with "Inside of You, In Spite of You," a driving number with lyrics that at once seem to evoke God ("I am the dawn of ages/I am the days seen through/I'm final entropy") and still fit into the genre of crazed stalker song ("I am in your future/I am in your past... I am inside of you, in spite of you"), all without once being offensive or polemical.

From that it moves to "Cardinal Directions," a song that fuses the band's apparent love of blippy 80s synth pop (It's main synth line sounds like it could have been lifted directly from a Mega Man game) with a harder rock sensibility. The first single off the album, and a fine one at that.

From there, we have "Come a Time," in which, faced with the rise of rap rock, ThouShaltNot asks "Why not do Goth Rap?" Upon inventing a genre, they promptly master it with this song, seemingly sung to the devil on the eve of the Apocalypse ("And when you're called to serve, will you have the nerve to do all that you know is wrong / Just to save your skin no matter which side wins, just to know that you were there all along / Is it better to reign in a world of pain then to serve a cause divine?")

Next is "We Could Have Flown Like Pollen," a song which could have been many lesser band's greatst work, but unfortunately comes off as one of this band's weaker songs.

After that, TSN shifts into ballad mode with the understated "The Ocean Is Your Voice." Even this slow ballad about a love affair in the rawest and most violent part of its end has a crescendoing intensity to it, however, making it one of the album's hidden gems.

The sixth track, "Glaciers," is a return to the energetic and catchy dance numbers that opened it - a trancy synth-driven number about the physicality of existance ("Taste the cells dividing / All to come and all that's been."). The song

On "100 Generations," the band shows the depth of their musical knowledge with a densely layered song that they describe on their website as containing "five guitars, four drumsets, four vocal parts (one of which is heavily layered), bass, a whisper track, and more synth than is really reasonable." It also, apparently, has a very subtle accordian line.

The next track, "The Insistence on Solid Floors," is a pallete cleansing instrumental number - nuanced and subtle.

Track nine, "G.L.M." may be the strangest track on the album - a fast-paced song sung with delightful hamminess, while its lyrics ground it in a very visceral sense of horror.

Following that is "Trial By Fire," an unabashedly poppy number with riffs that pay homage to Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" and Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People," while crafting their own sound. Despite its trashy and bouncy pop aspirations, the song still contains the band's trademark wordy philosophical ruminations ("I dust away the plaster / From off your breathing body / You're clutching your autonomy / You'll never be the same.")

After that, the album winds down with a pair of closely related songs. The first, "Song for the Dying," is a sprawling epic number that requires many listenings to really get to the subtlty of it. Still, even the first listen will bring a smile to your face with its brief homage to the Smashing Pumpkins' greatest hit.

The second, "The White Beyond," is even more epic, with a rich string backing, counterpointed by occasional dissonant drumming. The lyrics reach back across the album, evoking several of the previous tracks, and giving the album a real sense of reach and depth.

The final track, "(breathe again)," is another instrumental, providing a quiet counterpoint and musical resolution to the crashing end of "The White Beyond." It is not a song you will ever decide, "Hey, I think I'll give this a listen," but it fittingly ties off the album.

Anyone who wishes that Depeche Mode were just a bit harder will love this album. Actually, I take that back. Anyone with the remotest amount of taste will love this album.

Alternative Rock Music CDs

• Music > Styles
• Dance & Electronic
• Pop
• Rock