Customer Reviews

Das Schachbrett Des Trommelbuben Zachari

5 star:		(3)
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This album is one of Angizia's most cheerful, not in the jolly-dummy way but in the musical (harmony/rhythm/sequence) one. Everyone did a great job: beautiful voices and incredible music. I have to say though, Marion Entwich is a masterpoet and he definitely makes poetry with those hands of his... crashing on the piano with such a delicate strenght...oh! I just love it!

Das Schachbrett Des Trommelbuben Zachari is the third full release for Angizia and followed their tradition of creating metal mixed with theatrical and classical influences. Given the history of Angizia, every one of their releases have been based on a series of short-stories written by Engelke.

This release follows the path of their two previous albums, but the style of singing changed dramatically. In their previous albums, Angizia would combine metal and classical with a soprano/tenor duet and with screeching vocals. This album featured a greater concentration of folk music and clean vocals and relied less on "metal." While annoying at first, the male vocals in this album tend to fade with respect to annoyance and become an important part of the album's overall success.

Overall, Angizia's first two albums are highly recommended. This album would make a great addition for any fan.

Although this Austrian band stems from the black metal scene, it would be a mistake to think of their music as gratuitously brutal or conformist. Actually, this is probably one of the most visionary albums I've ever heard! Angizia's style is a complex, marvelously composed blend of classical music, folk elements (Slavic mostly; for some reason, the librettist seems obsessed by Russia) and Romantic doom metal. The result sounds like a dark rhapsody structured like an opera. The lead female singer has a wonderful voice that perfectly fits the music and sometimes reminded me of Marlene Dietrich. As for the orchestration, metal freaks will probably be disappointed by the guitar parts that act more as backgrounds to the melodies, injecting more power into them without being overly present; the leading instrument would rather be the piano. True, the male singer's voice is irritating at times (which is all the more surprising since Angizia's first album featured a excellent tenor). But if you are open-minded enough to value maturity and great compositions over bands with a great sound and not much underneath, you can hardly pick a better band than Angizia.