Oratory
Beyond Earth
LMP
2002
It finally came, the awaited sequel to 'Illusion Dimensions'. Oratorys second album, 'Beyond Earth'. Undoubtably Oratory maintain their elegans, their strenght from the first album and develop the music thanks to their female vocalist Ana Lara who took over the the old, male vocalist chose to leave. 'Beyond Earth' is a big step forward for th Portugeses who makes a huge effort here! Heavy guitars share space with lovely keyboards and easy going drums i power format. I especially like the songs 'Your Glory Won't Last Forever' amd 'Beyond Earth' and they represent the album very well too! Hail to Portugal!
10p - Caj Källmalm

Author's comment:
The review is pretty telling for how we wrote the reviews back to the first issue of printed Hallowed. Because of the limited number of letters we could use in each review due to the limited space we had to work on, the maximum was eight full rows per review and the only exception we did was if there was a damn good reason for it. Still, it feels like I on that short review did a pretty good job in getting important points made here. I say it's the second album and the name of the first. It's made clear that someone else do the vocals, the the sound has improved and some of the sound pictures most notable qualities like the heavy guitars and lovely keyboards and easy going drums. I also menthion two songs that I like better and as an extra bonus I don't only once but twice make it clear they come from Portugal.

If we see beyond the obvious lack of basic facts with a complete tracklist, members list, discography and so on, the thing I miss the most is an explanation to why this album is so good it deserves a ten out of ten. I also miss a statement telling in which tempo the album goes. It's nothing about the production, neither do we menthion what feelings that comes from listeing to it or alot of other things we today take for granted in a Hallowed review. Like the humor? Where's the jokes?

Still, you should have in mind the fact that there wasn't a possibillity to do the A4-long reviews we write today and that's why I think the review regarding the space issue and the fact it was in our first issue makes it a decent review in my eyes. There's no doubt it's a great album even if you don't look at the grades and that's basically what a review should deliver.

However, if the review should have been written today, here is what I would write:

From Hallowed #1, January 2003