German Pascual: Beyond Our Comprehensions | In Equilibrium With Metal
(2025 – Roxx Productions)
When something seems undefined and opens the door to debate and discussion, it generally ends up achieving its goal. In other words, it ends up interesting me much more than it did at first. Something similar happens with Germán Pascual’s latest album, in which labels are left behind, somewhere, leaving us with the question for debate: what are we talking about? Classic metal? Power metal? Progressive metal? It’s a difficult question. You could say that the combination goes through all of that, and even more.
It’s not the first time someone has thought of combining all these factors, but in the case of “Beyond Our Comprehensions,” there is also a tendency and production to bring everything together into a strong, compact, agile, and modern sound, no more and no less. It’s a kind of twist on what we all already know, giving it a different color.
We’re not going to discover anything new when we talk about German Pascual’s great vocal range. He is an excellent vocalist, with infinite melodies and capable of handling the tempos required by each harmony, each riff. Because in itself, “Beyond Our Comprehensions” is a collection of songs with a complex and diverse composition, and that’s why it’s so difficult to find a label that helps to define it. In any case, it seems that the balance between speed, heaviness, and melody is the right place to start to understand where German Pascual is going with this work.
The opening track is the intricate and fast-paced “Can You Save Me,” with tight, compact riffs that lean toward something more modern, but with a background orchestration that gives it a distinctive air, and with German Pascual’s melody, which is somewhat of a contrast to the whole soundscape.
“Through Fire And Brimstone” is a good and accurate combination of something more Hard Rock and the most melodic we could find in Metal, with a purely progressive idea. With a ‘Metalcore’ type riff, “The Great Divide” surprises with its approach of being at the same time a strong, aggressive, and also melodic and introspective idea.
If it seems that German Pascual is only capable of this, as soon as we cross the threshold of “Breach My Despair,” we find ourselves in a world crossed by progressive influences, vocal harmonies that at times remind us of the most current Iron Maiden, and the base, present throughout the album, of strong and heavy guitars, in a song that, above all, is ultimately melodic.
With “Perfect Harmony,” things seem to lean more toward melodic power metal, and it is possibly one of the best things German shows in this work. The truth is that its hook and conception make it one of the best examples on the album. Simple and direct.
On the other hand, “Masque Of Vengeance” takes a different path. Intricate riffs, speed, and a feeling of sonic overload take German Pascual on an extravagant journey of metal and melody, giving us another of the album’s highlights.
Towards the end, we have “Send Me Out,” an energetic, direct, and powerful sample of power metal, with just the right dose of strength and melody. On the other hand, we find “Time For Salvation,” with a much more marked influence from classic and traditional metal.
But that’s not all; there’s also room for two versions of “Perfect Harmony.” One in Portuguese and the other in Spanish (German Pascual has lived in Sweden for many years, but he was born in Uruguay and has also lived in Brazil), as a way of not forgetting the South American and Latin roots of its singer-songwriter.
“Beyond Our Comprehensions” is a work that evolves the sound with which German Pascual inaugurated his solo career with his previous and first album “New Beginning.” Under the general production of Jani Stefanovic (Silence The Echo), German Pascual manages to capture a good work where the constant is a sound based on modern twists, where the guitar riffs mark the pulse of every moment of the album. The balance is found in the vocal melodies that give each song on the album a different feel, debating between heavy bases and closed riffs. The dichotomy is finding a label for the matter, and that makes this material intriguing and interesting, to say the least.
The album is the result of a long journey of recordings in different studios, both in Sweden and Finland, between 2010 and 2025 (later they criticized Axl Rose for the time he took with his “Chinese Democracy”!), and as we said, it was produced, mixed, and mastered by Jani Stefanovic, who also contributed a large part of the compositions. The resulting sound is overwhelming, compact, and based mainly on heavy guitars, courtesy of Patrik Gardberg and Tom Gardiner (on “Through Fire And Brimstone”), accompanied by that melodic keyboard and orchestral base that, to tell the truth, gives the whole album that kind of sonic cushion. Definitely, there is some good work here in terms of audio.
The cover of “Beyond Our Comprehensions” is in line with what the album is musically; that is, intriguing, but artistically tasteful, and its design runs throughout the inner sleeve (which is also of excellent quality, it must be said), where we find the lyrics to the songs, some photos of German, and of course, all the technical data about the album.
It was a good decision to make this album available not only digitally, but also on CD and vinyl, which, as we always say, is the best option when it comes to listening to music, and particularly Metal, as in this case.
As usual, here is a lyric video for one of the songs on “Beyond Our Comprehensions,” more precisely “Perfect Harmony,” and as always, the coordinates to find German Pascual on social media and stay tuned for his latest news…
https://www.facebook.com/germanpascualofficial
https://www.instagram.com/germanpascualofficial
