One Step Beyond – Life Imitates Art
Yet another band arising from Australia eager to absorb all the stylistic influences of the extreme and shape them into something that may be hard to classify, but very entertaining to behold. One Step Beyond possess the bluesy groove and attitude of Blood Duster on tracks like “Rockstar”, while focusing on open minded brutal death on “Greed” and “One Chance”, but the music thankfully never stoops to blatant band emulation, moshable mids, or IQ lowering segments of brutality by numbers. One moment, the grind cripples with exacting guitar trickery, only to ease off the vocal shrieks, to settle back into the deeper death register that somehow allows some verses to slip through completely comprehendible. Chicawakka funk guitar surprises on the 70’s slanted “Forecast” to reinforce the fact that One Step Beyond is out to shock the listener with drastic genre shifts. More oddball influences arrive as “Life Imitates Art” forges on in the form of a Caribbean, Jimmy Buffet guitar line on “Infinite Illusion”, only for more and more non metal guitar work to be found fused in the middle of the heavier death songs. The ideas on hand are lighthearted and obviously meant to challenge the listener, but like all bands that aren’t afraid to push the boundaries, they run the risk of alienating the music fans they are hoping to impress with their music. Through the meticulously programmed drum work and often dominant clean/funk bass tone, the music does offer me an oasis away from the standard blood and satan rhetoric typically arriving at our mail box and I really respect this band for their risk taking approach to creating metal. The question is, are you open minded enough to give this band your focused ear and be able to judge freely without taking into consideration the often limiting laws of heavy metal? You are going to have to if you are going to “get” this band. One Step Beyond are among the most technically competent, original and diverse bands you will likely find using metal music as their main bass of operation. – Marty
ONE STEP BEYOND
PO Box 40
Marden S.A. 5070
Australia
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