Betoken are a band from Italy that plays a symphonic style of power/thrash metal and this is a review of t heir 2014 album "Beyond Redemption" which will be released on October 6th by Buil2Kill Records.
Horror movie style synths start off the album bringing an epic and classical music feeling to the recording and after a minute the music goes into more of a heavy and melodic direction along with some clean singing vocals and all of the musical instruments have a very powerful sound to them and the band also mixes the heavier parts in with the more symphonic elements as well as adding in elements of speed metal to the faster side of the guitar riffing.
When solos and leads are added into the music they add more to the old school and melodic side of the bands musical style and some of the tracks also bring in a small amount of female vocals giving the songs more of an operatic feeling and all of the songs have a very dark, occult and ritualistic feeling to them and there is also a brief use of deeper demonic vocals on one of the tracks.
The symphonic elements takes the bands old school approach to power/thrash metal and updates the style for the modern days and as the album progresses the band also brings in some elements of prog metal as well as adding a small amount of spoken word parts on a couple of the tracks as well as a small amount of clean playing being utilized at times and towards the end the band brings in a brief instrumental.
Betoken takes an 80's style of power metal and brings in the heaviness of thrash as well as adding in more of a symphonic and operatic touch to create some very original sounding music, the production sounds very professional while the lyrics are a concept album based on Christopher Marlowe's version of "Faust".
In my opinion Betoken are a very great sounding symphonic power/thrash metal band and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "A Thirst For Knowledge" "The Man Who Would be The Devil" "Hellward" and "Lucifers Bless". 8/5 out of 10.
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