Back to Times of Splendor

Disillusion

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 6, 2004)
• Original Release Date: April 6, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Metal Blade
• ASIN: B0001NBNK2
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #138,588 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Hard facts: In the year 2001, singer, guitarist and studio bassist Vurtox joined forces with Jens Maluschka (drums) and Rajk Barthel (guitar), breathing new life into the band DISILLUSION, which had been inactive for three years. A new band was born to create their very own fusion of death, thrash, black and progressive metal, very soon becoming Germany's hottest newcomers on the extreme metal scene.

Before the end of 2001 DISILLUSION recorded the 4-track demo "Three Neuron Kings", which immediately caused a stir in the German underground. Among other things, the band was named Newcomer of the Month in Metal Heart magazine and won the "Support the Underground" band contest sponsored by Legacy magazine.

In August 2002 the MCD "The Porter" was released on Voice Of Life Records, gaining the band some well-deserved international recognition. DISILLUSION was subsequently signed to Metal Blade Records.

A new chapter began in the band's history...

Soft facts: Alone I Stand In Fires - The Spirit Of Splendor Led by mastermind Vurtox, the band took over a year and a half to write and eight months to record what seems like a virtual world. Inside this world, a moving story of passion and drama unfolds in wild, bizarre and romantic landscapes: grandiose feelings, inexorable destinies, triumph and tragedy.

"Back To Times Of Splendor" is DISILLUSION's first full-length album. It is the soundtrack to this story.

It's not necessary to explain the story - it's there to grasp by just listening to the album: big cinema inside the mind, in widescreen and cinemascope. A large amount of breaks can be found in each song, but never sounding forced or unnatural. The music flows through picturesque landscapes, sometimes roaring powerfully through bizarre canyons, sometimes clashing with massive boulders, sometimes flowing through epic valleys of green.

The tried and tested foundation on which the whole is built is the technical guitar work for which DISILLUSION are already well known. Add to this some stunningly varied vocals: hectic screams, surprisingly intelligible grunts, elegiac clear vocals, which are nothing but pop music in its most positive meaning, and, last but not least, sophisticated polyphonic choirs.

All this is held together by daring arrangements, which integrate a wide array of computer generated sounds into the mix. Especially prominent are the strings - for example, the celestial violin in the title track, which in its sheer complexity seems to be the monolithic centre of the sound massif. 14 minutes and 38 seconds length are compressed to a fraction in the subjective listening experience due to its compactness. Not only the sound was condensed, so was the time!

Catchy hooklines are all over the place - the charts could be filled with them for weeks on end. But DISILLUSION has withstood the temptation of burning out these flashes of melodic brilliance in endless loops. This way the melody lines sound purer and never get worn out.

The production process was hard and demanding. Boundaries were reached, pushed and crossed. The band took the time to be spontaneous, but used it also to perfect even the slightest detail. No less than four release dates had to be postponed, which is not the way things usually work on a debut album. But in the end, there are things that need their time, something that the responsible people at the record label had to acknowledge as well.

The final product lies before us. It more than justifies those long nights, the doubts and the desperation.

They stood alone in fires. From the fires, a diamond has risen:

Onwards to Times Of Splendor!

Product Description

Melodic Death/Thrash Metal

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tyrannical titan of an album, November 27, 2004

By	Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Back to Times of Splendor may not be the best album of 2004 (although it's up there), but it does deserve some consideration for the title of "most criminally underappreciated". With this album Disillusion have created a work of stunning grandiosity and complexity, the kind of album that should appeal to just about all kinds of headbanger. These guys are all over the map, inviting comparisons to bands from such disparate segments of the metal genre as Opeth, Blind Guardian, and (early) Arch Enemy. They accomplish this none-too-easy feat with loads of brilliant musicianship and some of the most inventive and intelligent metal songwriting of the year. Everything about this album is epic, from the vocals to the melodies to the song lengths (yes, the three or four people who regularly read my reviews may notice that I recently made almost the exact same remark about Isis's Panopticon, but it may apply even more to this album).

It's also worth noting that while they're undoubtedly a "progressive metal" band, with all of the characteristics such a description generally entails, Disillusion are largely able to avoid the more negative connotations associated with the progressive label. While Vurtox's German-accented clean vocals can at times be a bit much, this album contains little of the excess for which such bands as Dream Theather and Symphony X are notorious (this is not to say that the foregoing are necessarily bad, but c'mon, we all know they can overdo things). There are no long-winded arrangements here, no keyboard solos, and no syrupy ballads. In other words, much like the aforementioned Isis, these guys manage to encapsulate all that's good about a progressive and eclectic approach while largely steering clear of the pretension that often accompanies it.

While it may contain a mere six songs, Back to Times of Splendor still has a lot of meat on it, as those six tracks add up to almost an hour of listening. For convenience's sake, the album be divided pretty neatly into two sets of three songs each. The opening And the Mirror Cracked, Alone I Stand in Fires, and Back to Times of Splendor all present a similar sound, and it's quite a sound at that. These three songs are all warp-speed metallic bludgeonings, containing some of the most devastating riffs and guitar harmonies EVER, with Vurtox's vocals occasionally reaching death-metal levels of intensity (but it should be noted that unlike most death vocals, his are good). Occasionally the band will tone down the assault and segue into more melodic territory featuring clean vocals and more of an Opeth-style jazz-folk sound, but even then there's a distinctly "metal" intensity to their sound, and the less claustrophobic nature of these sections merely serves to make it easier to hear the complexity of the band's musicianship, especially the rhythm section.

The other three tracks on the album aren't quite as monumentally good as the others, but they all still have something to offer. The dynamic-laden Fall starts out (relatively) slow and gentle before some head-banging riffs and harsh vocals kick in for a sound somewhat similar to prime In Flames. A Day by the Lake is perhaps the most interesting song here, with some intricate acoustic guitar work sharing space with a killer lead line and some head-spinning drum work from Jens Maluschka. At 17 minutes, The Sleep of Restless Hours is a mountainous, genre-bending epic, complete with strings, some more killer guitar solos, and vocals that run from orchestral singing to cavernous growls. It does get a bit overwrought towards the end, but hey, nothing's perfect.

Anyway, this is clearly one of the best metal albums of the year, and it deserves a lot more attention than it's gotten. If there's any justice in the music world, one day Disillusion will get some radio airplay, followed by videos on MTV, a series of platinum albums, and sold-out stadium tours. After all, if the Red Sox can win the World Series, anything can happen, right? Right?

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive, January 14, 2005

By	General Zombie (the West) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Hmm, doesn't seem like anyway has heard of these guys yet. Well, they will soon, I'll bet. This is very impressive stuff, particularly for a debut album. Disillusion is basically a mixture of melodeath and straight prog metal. This sounds like a dangerous potential combination, as these aren't two of my favorite metal subgenres. However, Disillusion combines the best of each sides, while largely ignoring the bad stuff, and made one of the best albums of the year.

These guys are obviously very skilled musicians, but they tend to keep things under control. The solos, in particular, aren't as long or frequent as they'd often be, and tend to focus on melody and mood rather than speed. They work very well, I might add. Unlike lots of melodeath and prog metal bands, they write consistently strong riffs. They don't write riffs that are trying so hard to be melodic that they've got no punch, as often do the former, and don't write ones that are trying so hard to be complex that they don't go anywhere or do anything, as often do the latter. They've also got a rather nice, thick and bassy guitar tone. The production on this album, however, isn't so great. It's not terrible but its could have been both sharper and heavier, and is unusually distant and muddy for a modern recording. It certainly doesn't ruin it. but it's far from ideal. The vox are pretty good. Vurtox has got a fairly good growl, and his singing voice is pretty decent. It's not great, but they write good vocal melodies, which is what matters the most.

It opens with 'And the Mirror Cracked', which is a simply unbelievable song, and easily the best one on the album. It's an entry in the old 8 1/2 minute epic style of metal songwriting, meaning it's got your standard verse-chorus structure, but with an especially long middle break, which is typically much more mellow than the rest of the song. The best songs of this sort are 'Master of Puppets' and 'Flesh and the Power it Holds'. Well, you can place 'And the Mirror Cracked' alongside those two, now. It opens with a beautiful, epic guitar lead, giving way to some blast-beats and incredibly dense, breakneck riffing that still maintains a certain melodic edge. There are some rather good death vox during the verses and it's got a great melodic riff underneath the actual chorus, and an immediately memorable pre-chorus hook.( still wondering) The middle break is fantastic too, with several beautiful, sorrowful guitar leads and some nice piano and acoustic guitar work. They shouldn't placed this song first- it's too good, the rest of the album can't match it. Still, the rest is good. 'Fall' is next. It's another rocker, but quite a bit more subdued than the previous track, and w/o any death vox. It's still a very strong track, with lots of incredibly intricate rhythm guitar work. The opening riff is particularly awesome. 'Alone I Stand in Fires' picks up the intensity a bit again. The rhythm work is again quite powerful and very widely varied, with some faster grindcore-ish stuff going on at times. It's got some particularly prominent but well used synths/strings, and is very claustrophobic, with a thick rhythmic base combining a real drum with a drum machine.(some of the time, anyway) A very good song. It probably should have been the opener. The 14 minute title track is next. You have to listen to it pretty carefully to take it all in, but it's quite an excellent song. It's got a very pretty and surprisingly appropriate violin melody, and a very effective, sung chorus. Don't think it too mellow, as it still heavily consists of death-thrash riffing and growling overtop of pounding double bass. The mellow middle break is very good too, with some great, dueling acoustic guitars. 'A Day by the Lake' is a atmospheric, melodic track. It's got a lot of energy for this sort of song, and is plenty melodic, but doesn't seem quite complete. It seems to end about 3 mintues too early. Still, it's quite a good song. The closer, 'The Sleep of Restless Hours' is both the longest and the weakest track on the album. It's still pretty good, but it can get a bit overwrought at times, and just doesn't have as many interesting musical ideas as the rest of the album. It's still a pretty solid track, however.

Well, that's it. I expect big things from these guys in the future.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Behold ! - the new extreme metal power is rising !!!, April 14, 2004

By	Peter Jozwiak (Canada) - See all my reviews

Well folks, groups like this one don't come up often, so do yourself a favor and buy it ASAP - it may open your eyes (and ears) to death/prog/jazz/power/metal mixture which will amaze you !!! I'll not evaluate any of the songs here - you've got to listen to it as a whole - exactly the same way you did on two best Opeth volumes (MAYH & Still Life )... I hope you did...
... otherwise I don't know why you're reading this :-)