Melodic Death Metal band from USA [Weymouth/Easton, Massachusetts]
Tracklist:
01. In The Long Drawn Days
02. Drawn From Autumn
03. Enslaved
04. A Revelation For The Forsaken
Recorded at Ultrasound Studios in June, 2000. Engineered, Mixed + Mastered by Joe Clapp. All songs by Devlin, Chappell, Roche. All lyrics by Kwong, Roche. Self-released June 2000.
Line-up: L.Kwong - vocals | J.Chappell - guitar | R.Devlin - guitar | A.Wentworth - bass | B.Roche - drums
400 copies made. The first 50 were hand numbered and had horribly ugly and cheesy black covers.
Beyond The Sixth Seal started sometime in 1998 as a project between Rob Devlin and Ross McHugh. Soon the two grew sick of just two guitar players in Ross's basement, so Carl and Jimbo were brought in on bass and drums. Now they were almost a full band. Justin Chappell was singing for Exceed at the time. When he parted ways, he wound up singing with Rob and Ross for what would later become the Sixth Seal.
If I remember correctly, they played at some local college for a large ammount of people, and stole the show with a cover of "so what" comeplete with curse words and all. Drunken college kids will accept public vulgarity in place of skill at one's instrument. That was the end of that. Carl and Jimbo had to go.
Brendan was working at a local record store when he met Justin. After a 7 hour conversation about Iron Maiden, Justin mentioned he had this band that needed a drummer, and the Sixth Seal would begin to take shape. By this time, Justin had taken up playing bass. The 4 wrote some new songs and prepared to record a demo. Around this time Ross left the band due to 'musical differences,' whatever that really means. (Ross is still our buddy and he visits us at practice) The now trio recorded what would become 'Genocide Empire' in 6 hours, for under a $100 by Luke Vail in our practice studio. The band was still nameless at this point. I've seen a master CD of this recording with the name 'Legion" on it, but no one liked it; they drew a name out of a hat, and Beyond The Sixth Seal was born.
It was decided that a second guitarist was needed, and Nate May seemed the right choice at the time. There was a kid named Matt Bell who sang for a while. Either before or during the Nate period. But either way, Matt Bell's stay was short lived, as he mistook Justin's World War II fascination with being a Nazi. In January of 2000 Lawrence Kwong came into the picture. He was working with Brendan and came down to try out. Larry sounded like Jens Ryden of Naglfar and therefore got the job. Beyond The Sixth Seal would play theire first show with Eternal Suffering and Breedinground.
A month or so went by, and the feedback from Nate's amp pushed everyone over the edge. Nate got the axe and Justin moved to guitar. Gene filled in on bass for a while even though he couldn't really play. A few shows went by and Sixth Seal added Eric as a full time bass player. He wouldn't tune to the rest of the band and insisted on using an unmarked fretless bass even though he had only been playing for less than a year. He was into magic cards from what the band has told me. I never met Eric, but my friend sat next to him in high school, and has on several occasions reffered to him as "that tool I used to sell fake acid to all the time." Acting like a true moron, Eric quit the night before the 2000 demo was recorded. Good times. Good times.
That same night, Larry ran into Adam at a party. Someone mentioned that he had quit his old band, and Larry asked him to help him out. The next day recording started as scheduled. The sessions took 3 days to record, mix and master. The demo began circulating throughout massachusetts and earned the band a somewhat steady string of shows. A copy of the disc found it's way to Germany, and much like David Hasselhoff, the Germans liked Beyond The Sixth Seal.
The band teamed up with Voice Of Life Records in late 2000 and agreed to do an EP. As soon as the new year rolled around the Sixth Seal was back at Ultrasound Productions with Joe Clapp recording 'A Homicide Divine.' The EP was released on April 15 2001, and lead to a successful 2 week German tour in August of 2001.
After returning to the states, Beyond The Sixth Seal are currently completing material for their upcoming full length, set to be released in early 2002.
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