When an album purports to tell a story, I get apprehensive. Instead of requiring an investment of time in order to create an emotional effect as other mediums do, music immediately carries the mind into its shapeless landscape. Music is appealing because its ability to affect or resonate with the listener's mood is completely independent from speech or a concrete string of events. It is baffling, then, that bands think it a good idea to put the actual music in the backseat and attempt to move the listener with their words. Far too often these albums suffer from lackluster musicianship, overbearing vocals, and poorly written lyrics, leaving me wishing bands would put the pen down and go play some solos. Leave the writing to linguists, guys.
Unfortunately, I’m not here to tell you about a groundbreaking release that shattered my preconceived notions about concept albums. No, Nation Beyond’s debut album, The Aftermath Odyssey, has only reinforced a stereotype. A tale of love in a post-apocalyptic world, the story will have you retching right from the outset. Delivered extremely clearly by a fairly talented vocalist, the plot is contrived and cliché, featuring enemies of the protagonist ominously named “The Others” and “The Deceivers.” If that doesn’t have you cringing, how about a relationship that inexplicably goes from non-existent to true love to betrayal in a matter of less than six minutes? Try these lyrics from the inventively named power ballad “Soulmates:”
“Always with you,
You are the one, my angel
My soulmate, forever more
We’re bounded by fate
In a world of bitter hate
For love it’s never too late
Together we are strong
Together we’ll go on
Love is forever hand in hand.”
Yeah, the two people singing those lyrics? They met each other a few lines earlier. Not kidding. A few minutes later, the woman, as it turns out, isn’t an angel at all, but a Deceiver working for.... the Others! Shock and alarm, dear reader, shock and alarm ensued on my part! Or, more accurately, pained expressions and a sudden urge to destroy nearby audio equipment ensued. Between the stupid three minute opener that struggles to be portentous through various sound bites of George W. Bush talking about terrorism and a ridiculously overdone song about kissing some broad’s dead lips and mourning the tragically killed, examples of terrible rhyme schemes, excessively repetitive choruses, painfully bad writing, awful spoken parts, and cruddy plot points abound throughout the entire album.
And, in typical concept album fashion, the music itself is an afterthought. When the instruments aren’t plodding along to allow the vocalist to deliver his masterfully written lyrics, the music sounds like a B-squad Enlighten the Darkness-era Angel Dust combined with inept versions of Queensrÿche and Evergrey. Note, however, that all of those bands have much better guitarwork than anything present on The Aftermath Odyssey, so be careful not to formulate misleading positive associations. The guitars do no more than provide a backing for the vocals, usually providing a single simple, uninspired riff for each song, which amounts to their presence being entirely forgettable. Keyboards and drumming are present throughout the album, but are even more unremarkable. Nation Beyond’s sound is so insipidly unoriginal it had me searching my CDs on several occasions, looking for a song that I swore the band had ripped off.
In a way, though, generic songwriting is the album’s greatest strength. If you can tune out what the vocalist is actually saying, you’ll intermittently be nodding your head to basic metal. In fact, the song “The Wanderer” is actually pretty enjoyable.
If you want a similar sounding concept album, buy Iced Earth’s Night of the Stormrider, then proceed to forget about this album. If you want a concept album about love, buy King Diamond’s The Puppet Master, then proceed to forget about this album. If you can stand overwhelmingly bad stories and have a insatiable desire for third-rate melancholic power metal, you might get more out of The Aftermath Odyssey than I did, but, otherwise, forget about this album.