"Epic" is a word that's bandied about with gusto in relation to music nowadays and rarely fits the bill. However, Pyre's To Insanity, and Beyond is a symphonic power metal offering that truly earns the oft-overused appellative. With this in mind, it seems baffling that it should all be the work of one man... and yet, it is.

This juxtaposition of grandiose sound and singular vision is at the heart of the ambitious project; the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, composer and producer Peter Van Raalte. Aural auteur or eccentric obsessive? That's for the listener to decide, but the resulting work is a thundering opus that traverses themes of love, war, madness, guilt, escapism, adventure and peril, brought to life with a Viennese orchestra and some blistering guitar solos.

The culmination of a decade's hard graft, To Insanity, and Beyond owes its existence as much to rhapsodic composers like Hans Zimmer and sardonic songwriters like Tim Minchin as it does to more overt influences like Finnish metal band Nightwish, and yet it transcends comparison as something that is entirely its own beast. Van Raalte's flair for storytelling is evident throughout the record, as is his penchant for intricate, careening and mournful orchestral melodies interspersed with gut-thumping distortion. The effect is a musically cinematic odyssey that is rich in fantasy and lore.

To Insanity, and Beyond traverses moments that are tender and introspective (“Hope Survives", "3 a.m."), and rollicking and bombastic ("My God Carries a Hammer", "Not Fade Away"), and in-between delivers dramatic, genre-defying songs worthy of a mighty metal musical ("The Infinite War", "Beyond Salvation"). From the very first leitmotif to its simultaneously wistful and tongue-in-cheek finale, Van Raalte's tour de force is one hell of a ride, so strap in tight as he takes you on a monumental journey: To Insanity, and Beyond...

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