Beyond the Veil
1. Beyond the Veil
2. Aphelion
3. A Sequel of Decay
4. Opus Relinque
5. Lethean River
6. …Of Ruins and a Red Nightfall
7. Simbelmynë
8. Angina
9. Heretique
10. Dementia
Beyond the Veil is the second full-length album by the Norwegian band Tristania. It is the last album to feature the band’s former vocalist, guitarist and core songwriter, Morten Veland.
Background and Influence
Tristania stood apart from the other bands of the genre with their use of three distinct vocal styles in the “operatic soprano Vibeke Stene, clean-singing counter-tenor Østen Bergøy, and harsh, black metal-style shrieker Morten Veland”. Beyond the Veil made use of a ten-member choir and featured violin passages from Pete Johansen of The Sins of Thy Beloved, earning “rave reviews” across Europe. By then, the band had risen to “the top of the gothic metal heap” with their “lush, symphonically enhanced” approach.
The album features “tender ethereal female voices” and “the brutality and harshness”, making it a promoter on the gothic metal scene. They were “dealt a potentially crippling blow” when singer, guitarist and principal composer Veland left the group to form Sirenia. Tristania has continued to prosper with subsequent releases and has since been “regarded as one of the world’s premiere goth metal bands”. Review website sputnik music classified the album as a “classic” within the genre it helped to develop, stating that the album finds itself to be “dark, symphonic, gothic metal that reeks in anger and despair. One of the crowning jewels to be found in the gothic metal genre and particularly one album that shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
Technical content
As the technical content of the album, it features “excellent synthesizer passages and haunting violin runs.Aside from the [operatic, clean and harsh] vocals.” The album achieves to capture the “coldest emotion from the deepest, darkest corners of the earth with majestic piano leads and epic keyboard passages pulsating throughout the complex arrangements” purposed by keyboardist Einar Moen, as the drumming proceeds with considerable speed and, when necessary, slowing down.