Beyond Creation is a Canadian technical/progressive death metal band. Once just one of many lowly local tech acts, they unexpectedly exploded onto the scene in the 2010s and quickly became one of the most major players in the genre.
Formed in Montreal in 2005 by Simon Girard (vocals, guitars), Nicolas Domingo Viotto (guitars), Dominic "Forest" Lapointe (bass), and Guyot Begin-Benoit (drums), the band was initially a part-time venture due to Lapointe's increasingly busy schedule with Augury, who were taking off at the time themselves. By 2007, Viotto had already left, and Kevin Chartre quickly took his spot. The band continued to make the rounds while Lapointe did his thing with Augury as his main gig, but they were slowly starting to go places themselves, and 2010 saw the release of a demo. This was around the time when Lapointe left Augury, and Beyond Creation became his new main gig. The band quickly made their way into the studio again, and in April of 2011, The Aura, their full-length debut, was self-released. The album wound up attracting a fairly major amount of press and word-of-mouth online, and over the following year, the band started playing more and more shows, though Begin-Benoit left at some point during the year and was replaced by Philippe Boucher (First Fragment, Chthe'ilist). 2013 wound up being a major year in several aspects: the band signed to Season of Mist in the beginning of the year, followed by a regional jaunt on that year's Decibel Tour and a Japanese tour around the end of the year. They returned to the studio in 2014, and Earthborn Evolution, their sophomore full-length, was released that October. 2015 wound up being an even bigger year for them, as they toured relentlessly across the US, including a spot on that year's Summer Slaughter, though Lapointe left early in the year and was replaced by Hugo Doyon-Karout (Brought by Pain). Over the next two or three years, the band toured. And toured. And toured. Just as people were starting to seriously wonder if they were ever actually going to do a third album, they announced their return to the studio in early 2018, and Algorythm, their third full-length, was announced that summer for an October release.
Discography:
- Demo (2010)
- The Aura (2011)
- Earthborn Evolution (2014)
- Algorythm (2018)
Earthborn Tropes:
- Alien Abduction: "The Deported".
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Kevin is by far the tallest member of the band, while Simon is of average height and Phil and Hugo are extremely short.
- Epic Rocking: "The Deported" (11:09), "Algorythm" (7:39), "Coexistence" (7:37), "The Inversion" (7:16), "Fundamental Process" (7:13), "The Aura" (7:07), "Surface's Echoes" (6:53), "Theatrical Delirium" (6:49), "Binomial Structures" (6:31), and "Omnipresent Perception" (6:12).
- Gratuitous English: Their early lyrics were somewhere between this and "Blind Idiot" Translation due to Simon Girard's generally subpar English, but between becoming more proficient in English and writing more lyrics in French, it has become less of an issue.
- I Am the Band: Simon Girard is the sole songwriter and generally leads the band's creative direction.
- Instrumentals: "Abstrait Dialog" and "Binomial Structures".
- Irony: Philippe Boucher left First Fragment to join Beyond Creation, but due to family issues, he had to sit out the 2015 Summer Slaughter, and Samuel Santiago (who replaced him in First Fragment) wound up filling in for him.
- Lead Bassist: Dominic Lapointe was Types A, C, and D, as he was renowned for his extreme technical ability, was already a selling point due to his work with Augury and Atheretic, and played a central role in their sound with his basslines, while Hugo Doyon-Karout is a Type A and D himself for similar reasons.
- Metal Scream: Simon Girard is a Type 2.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: The entire band save for Kevin Chartre, who towers over his bandmates. Hugo Doyon-Karout is particularly diminutive.
- Progressive Metal: A major feature of their sound, and they are generally closer to this than to tech.
- Sibling Team: Simon Girard and Philippe Boucher are cousins, which is close enough to apply.
- Special Guest: Christian Donaldson and Youri Raymond (Unhuman) have had guest appearances on album, while Samuel Santiago (who was in First Fragment at the time) was a live fill-in.
- Start My Own: Zigzagged by Dominic Lapointe; while he did indeed help found the band while he was in Augury and Atheretic as a side project, it was ultimately Simon Girard's band that he was a member of, not his band.
- Technical Death Metal: Generally closer to the prog end of the spectrum, but they fit within tech as well and have become one of the more famous bands in the genre as of the 2010s.
