Next to the usual classics of the last three regular albums we get quite some unreleased releases, live recordings or sold out vinyl releases. For fans and newbies surely a good thing, while in these cases I doubt that real collectors are big fans of these best ofs. All others do not only get music, but also a nice multimedia part. Musically IMPENDING DOOM cover a wide spectrum of Black, Death and Thrash Metal. The riffing of "The Great Pale Hunter", for example, reminds me a lot of MORBID ANGEL or DISSECTION. Other songs like "Burn The House Of God" strongly go into the spartanic direction of bands like DARKTHRONE. We by the way also get cover versions of bands like MORBID ANGEL or DARKTHRONE on "Beyond...". "Cromlech" of DARKTHRONE, "Chapel Of Ghouls" of MORBID ANGEL and "Armageddon Tales" of CELTIC FROST sound really good. Only the live cover of SLAYER's "Raining Blood" is hard to make out because of the weak sound. Apart from that the sound is altogether very different, depending on when the songs had been released. With a best of retrospective you should not put the biggest emphasis on that, though.

"Beyond..." is interesting for both new and also old and true fans, who want to shorten the waiting time until the new IMPENDING DOOM album is out, which should not be too long anymore. The Metalhead gets value for money with this double CD, with a playing time of roundabout 130 minutes!!! The band always has stayed true to its style and will most probably continue to do so. Maybe that is also the reason why the guys still make extreme music together after 10 years. Others that have been more successful have called it a day musically a long time ago. I pull my hat and wish the band all the best and a lot of success for the next 10 years.

Check out tips: all (Online July 18, 2003)