Mekong Delta - In a Mirror Darkly (2014)

In a Mirror Darkly is a nerdy progressive metal album with some inexcusably shitty cover artwork. It's also a lot less frenetic and psychotic than Mekong Delta's seminal records like The Music of Erich Zahn or The Principle of Doubt, nor is it as forceful and exhilarating as the Germans' 2007 comeback album Lurking Fear. If one or more of those things have turned you off, then I highly advise you skip along and pay this no mind. Otherwise: There. I covered all the flaws, but what I didn't tell you is that In a Mirror Darkly is a thrifty, intricate, intelligent example of progressive demi thrash with absolutely no hesitation to sound as varied and polished as possible. It's Dream Theater with a darker past, Ark without the distractingly Christian undertones, Symphony X without the flourish. Nah, it's Mekong Delta, and sorry to the above, but they were pretty much first...

I am not now and never have been an advocate for Ralf Hubert's decision to clean up the act a little, but this is the second time I've been surprised by that very result. The first was the 2010 classical opus Wanderer on the Edge of Time, which eschewed some of its predecessor's clinical badassery to refine and redefined the band's lifelong love of symphonic music. Now we've got a record which takes on a darker, Lovecraftian exhibition of otherworldly madness in about the cleanest means possible. Nothing new, since they've always had a fascination for this darker lyrical material since at least the second full-length (if not earlier), but this time out you've got a major contrast due to the extremely rich, tidy production values that you'd expect out of far bigger prog metal bands. When it comes down to the riffing, this is more or less a direct channel back to the band's earlier years, with cyclic, psychotic passages of melodic guitars and harmonies which transform Rush-like signatures into something which screams at you from the shadows, or from a surgical slab. Remarkably, the wild cadences and ebbing dementia always present in their earlier records is maintained here, despite the fact that the mix levels lend In a Mirror Darkly a lot more accessibility...

What I mean by that is, proggy mother fuckers who worship the output of labels like Sensory or Inside Out will revel in this album even if they've no interest in its brasher, intense forebears. You've got typical Mekong Delta thrashers like "Mutant Messiah" and "The Armageddon Machine" run up more theatrical, dramatic contrasts like "The Sliver in God's Eye" in which Martin leMar gets to flaunt the emotional range of his vocals, that have more impressive depths than the shriekers of Mekong's past lineups (not to mention a little Tate, Alder or Rivera). Granted, such a piece might be construed as pompous or excessively dweeby by those with a hate on for prog. metal in general, but at the same time there is a whole world of potential fans out there to whom a track like this opens a visible doorway. Personally, I side with the 3-4 heavier tracks on this disc, which are transparently cast as paeans to the band's earlier material, but I cannot complain that the less metallic components are not eloquent, professional, flavorful and help to round out the disc from becoming too manic or aimless, accusations I've seen leveled at the Germans through their past.

I don't know that this has the same level of 'personality' that you'd find on the older works, and  LeMar still seems to me one of their least exciting singers, despite the more mature he takes to the material, but it's really damn solid, and Mekong Delta if nothing else prove that they still belong to that explosive second tier of Teutonic thrash, if they only marginally fit that description part of the time. We've little to no hope that Deathrow or Living Death are reforming to produce visionary works of art, but Hubert's group and Holy Moses are at least holding down the fort. In the Mirror Darkly has a narrative quality to it, a completeness which manages to compensate for the initial instrumental cuts, not exactly the murkiest stuff of squamous horror you'd expect considering some of the lyrical matter, but I'm actually grateful to hear the themes taken in a different direction once in a while, rather than monopolized by cavern-core death metal bands.

The cover image, which translates the band's triangular motif into some cloudy, indiscernible green mess, is astoundingly awful. There is absolutely no reason for a band with 30 years under its belt to produce such amateur pap when they might avail themselves of even the crudest technological advancements...just a clear, digital HD picture of something interesting would have been fine. Not that the last (new material) full-length was an eye-catcher, but this sort of thing rubs me the wrong way, nearly as lamentable as Jag Panzer's Dissident Alliance, which at least had the excuse of being releases a very long time ago. No, In a Mirror Darkly is on a "Hey guys, I spent 5 minutes with a computer graphics program in 1993" level of suck. It's not even bad in a fun way. The icon looks bad, the green logo worse, and the album title? Wow. One wonders if they ran out of funds, out of time, out of ideas, or they threw this together in the last 30 seconds before sending off their master? This is far from Mekong Delta's best album musically, I wouldn't even place it in my personal 'top 5', but surely it deserved a little more luster so that when passersby see it they might have some reason to stop and listen...are we still doing that, people? Wanna guess why more people don't know about this band? It's not just because they're plebeians (well, that too).

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

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Mekong Delta - Intersections (2012)

By this point, a number of the better known German thrash acts have released compilations of re-recorded classics, for better or worse. Perhaps the most effective of these has been Destruction's brazen Thrash Anthems collection, with which they modernized an array of favorites into the context of current production standards, but numerous others like Tankard have been less successful. Here in 2012, Steamhammer Records will be releasing two more of these efforts, from mainstays Holy Moses and progressive thrash heroes Mekong Delta, the latter of which has been on a role with their new lineup and recent albums. As usual, I approach this sort of release with some trepidation. While glossier, louder and more accessible, I feel that the re-recordings can tend to rob some sense of perspective from the newer audience who haven't experienced them in their original format, and there's often a sense of 'rubbing out the past', even if the band are just out for a little fun...

But just as often, bands will look back on their past works as flawed and have a genuine desire to see them rehashed in a more digestible format. It's difficult to tell with Intersections, because while these are being executed through an almost entirely new lineup than the early versions (aside from bassist Ralf Hubert), they really don't take a lot of liberties with the material. For instance, vocalist Martin LeMar, while remaining distinct from the band's prior screamers, seeks to honor their craftsmanship closely enough that his timbre doesn't quite distinguish itself. If anything, he's got marginally less of the sporadic character and insanity that his predecessors once asserted over this music. The guitars sound a lot richer due to the advantages of modern studio polish, and the rhythm section truly shines through with some resilient, powerful tones coming out of Hubert's low end, but even though the album might seem a 'friendlier' way to bait a younger audience into their sound, I must admit that in nearly every case, I prefer their older incarnations.

That said, this isn't a bad selection, and if it drags a lot of new fans onto Mekong's radar of influence, then who am I to complain? Gods know, this band fucking deserves some attention over the hordes of also-rans and wannabes that seem to dominate the sub-genre's scene in recent years. The material chosen here spans their 1987-1994 era, the first six full-lengths, which is honestly surprising. I would have thought they'd stick to the first two or three, and then leave the door open for another volume, but then again they could always just mix and match as many of these collections as they desire from the entire backlog. Kaleidoscope (1992) seems the most favored with "Heartbeat", "Sphere Eclipse" and "Innocent?", while most of the others only have one or two proxies. Internally, the balanced mix of the instruments flows very well across the 10 tracks, equalized to the point that they almost feel as if they always belonged together.

Standouts would be "Heartbeat", "The Cure" and "Shades of Doom", the latter for the great and angry counter-vocals, but I fail to see how anyone new to the group would find the entire playlist less than enticing, even if some of my favorite songs in their discography have been omitted (especially from Principle of Doubt and The Music of Erich Zann). Ultimately, the fresh coat of paint and polish will hold some appeal for prog metallers and cerebral thrashers who have very little familiarity with Mekong Delta or the other tech German thrash of the 80s. If you've picked up Lurking Fear and Wanderer on the Edge of Time and feel no compulsion to do the legwork or dirty work in tracking down all the older CDs, tapes or vinyl, then have at it. I can't see myself desiring to experience this over the constituent original albums, but for what it's worth they've done an acceptable, competent job. A fresh coat of paint, but I wouldn't say that the songs sound all that 'fresh', beyond the tones of the bass, the choppier guitars and the muscular drumming. A newer, unreleased track or two would have rounded it out better.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

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Mekong Delta - Lurking Fear (2007)

It has not proven uncommon for the lesser known Germanic thrash patrols of the 80s to emerge renewed in the 21st century, but of all of them, Mekong Delta has made the boldest showing. Lurking Fear is a superb album through and through, and surprisingly their most aggressive and best produced. That Ralph Hubert has pulled this off after over a decade of absence, with an entirely new lineup, is akin to a miracle, but perhaps we should not be surprised that a composer of this level was capable of such an immaculate return to prominence. The boys he's brought on board for this record are no slouches themselves: veteran skinbasher Uli Kusch of Helloween, Masterplan, Gamma Ray and numerous others, including Mekong Delta in the late 80s; prog thrash and death guitar wizard Peter Lake of Theory in Practice; and last, but certainly not least, Leszek Szpigiel, the phenomenal shrieker who had done time in Wolf Spider, Scanner and Crows.

What could have stopped such a rogues' gallery from delivering the schizophrenic manhandling the Mekong Delta worshiper had so long craved? Answer: absolutely nothing. Lurking Fear is a mesmerizing outburst of intelligent, punishing tech thrash, the best album since 1989's opus The Principle of Doubt. Actually, fuck it. I'm going one further. This is the best album the band has ever recorded, so it's sort of a shame that this lineup could only be retained for just the one. It drags you into the same labyrinth of clinical, bewildering emotions that the band offered in their heyday, but with far higher values in production and an even stronger bond of songwriting than they had brought to bear on The Music of Erich Zahn or the s/t debut. Hubert has not entirely abandon the classical inclinations here, there are some orchestra instrumental covers like "Allegro" found scattered through the vocal tracks, but it's all so much more frenzied and cohesive. The album is a stunner from front to back, and if I've any complaint is that it's so fresh from the asylum that it's likely to induce paranoia. The title is truth in advertising.

Szpigiel is the perfect vehicle to pilot this whirlwind of riffing and ideas, and I always thought he might be, superior to both Wolfgang Borgmann and Doug Lee. He layers a number of higher pitched tones into some of the passages to create a hallucinogenic menace, but I also enjoy how they'll offset this with simple, percussive gang shouts (i.e. "Rules of Corruption"). The guitars are fucking insanity, just as cyclical, structured and hypnotic a beating as you'd find on any of the Theory in Practice full-lengths, and Kusch has given himself his best workout in many years. Through it all, you can hear Hubert's impeccable, low-end haunting presence and he sits back and grins at the genius he has assembled in one place. There are no stinkers on this entire album, though I heavily favor the vortexes of "Society in Dissolution", "Rules of Corruption" and "Immortal Hate (Accepting Prayers of Supremacy)", which frankly throttled my mind into the next dimension. Then again, who can resist "Moderato", in which the band incorporates familiar theatrical themes from Predator, the 'Imperial March', and others into frenetic metal symphony.

Yes, despite the band's intellect thrashing stimuli they somehow find the time to remember the 'fun' that steadied hands can have with the genre, and ultimately it all contributes to such a total package that just about every sorely lacking retro thrash outfit trying to peddle stolen dreams can go suckle their thumbs and weep. If only more artists were writing albums of this caliber, we could probably send civilization to the stars a few centuries ahead of the scheduled date, which is at this point looking like never.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (inside nothing real)

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Mekong Delta - Pictures at an Exhibition (1996)

Pictures at an Exhibition is the last Mekong Delta studio full-length of the 90s, after which the band would take a ten year sabbatical, the members exploring other opportunities. Its an homage to Modest Mussorgsky's famous piano suite of the same name, and thus an instrumental album. Doug Lee's tenure ended with Visions Fugitives; though he was still in the lineup at this time, he would not return in the following century. This also represents a culmination in the German band's love for this particular composer, having already covered some of the constituent movements ("The Gnome", "The Hug of Baba Yaga") and another well known Mussorgsky piece, "Night on the Bare Mountain", on prior recordings.

This is not the first such work: Emerson, Lake and Palmer covered the suite with a live album in 1971, and there's also a Japanese proto-electro rendition from the 70s which is quite cool, but I'll give Mekong Delta some credit, because this is perhaps my favorite. Their previous album, Visions Fugitives, featured an original symphonic arrangement of some length (alongside several shorter tracks), so I would have thought the next step to be an entire album of their own compositions, but ultimately I'm quite satisfied with this. The band have included two versions of each track, one with the band performing alone, the other with both band and orchestra, for a total of 32 and 70+ minutes of listening. I'm a bit divided on which I like more...the longer pieces do tend to sound more interesting with just Mekong performing them, but the interludes certainly benefit from the symphony. The orchestral versions certainly seem more enthusiastic, and yet, the core band elements are somewhat smothered in there.

At any rate, this was a fairly risky and ambitious project. Mussorgsky is a fantastic composer, a personal favorite, but I feel like Pictures at an Exhibition is yet another of those classical pieces that few mainstream folks can actually cite by name. Sure, they'll recognize the movements from a number of films, TV commercials or their educational years, but they're unlikely to much care for the nuance of the work being performed by a metal band. Yet, the Germans sound amazing as they graze through the mourning of "Il Vecchio Castello", Hubert's quirky bass-driven "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks", the frolicking "Limoges: Le Marché (La Grande Nouvelle)" or the famed "Heroic Gate (In the Old Capital of Kiev)". The material is obviously far below the ability level of the Mekong Delta players, but they do it justice, and some of the more flighty pieces do capture the band's schizoid, progressive essence naturally.

Pictures at an Exhibition is pretty good for what it is, the band's seeming finale until the vicious reawakening in 2007's Lurking Fear. If you're interested in metallic reworks of classical music, then it possibly belongs on your shelf alongside other such projects like the sappy Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Sort of how I crave the Minibosses' covers of Metroid and other Nintendo classic themes, I find myself breaking this album out when I'm feeling studious. Granted, it's not quite so worthwhile as breaking out an earlier composer's rendition of the Maurice Ravel arrangement, but then you'd be lacking the thrashing breaks and Ralph Hubert would be lacking your money. I'd also point out that it's far stronger to listen through "The Gnome" or "Baba Yaga" in this context, than independently among the band's original songs. Also: this cover art is the best I've seen from the band.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

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Mekong Delta - Visions Fugitives (1994)

Mekong Delta had tried their hand many times prior to Visions Fugitives at incorporating classical music into their dynamo of schizophrenic, cerebral thrash metal, but this was normally manifest through the covers of various composers like Mussorgsky, unusual when many of the band's peers were covering rock, punk or pop pieces. With this, their sixth album, they actually go ahead and create a 21+ minute symphonic centerpiece, which could be seen as the ultimate manifestation of their desires, and a practice they will more or less continue through later albums like Pictures at an Exhibition or Wanderer on the Edge of Time.

My reaction to this "Suite for Group and Orchestra" is mixed, but its certainly a curious journey. The "Preludium" creates a glorious, brooding atmosphere through synthesizers and lightly muted guitars, almost like a Mekong Delta theme for 'Godzilla'. The "Allegro" component seeks to elevate this into faster, symphonic metal frenzy, and "Dance" becomes the peak, with a brief and beautiful, pure orchestra that shifts into a climactic dirge. That said, I wasn't so much into the "Fugue" fragment, or the closing classical guitar sequence "Postludium", so the experience as a whole feels lopsided in quality. Thankfully, the band have included some new vocal originals, with Doug Lee reprising his role: "Them" and "Imagination" are easily the measure of anything found on Kaleidoscope, the latter featuring some daft bass work from Ralph Hubert. "The Healer" is gentler on the conscience, a graceful waltz of pulsing bass and melodic lines, while "Days of Sorrow" offers up a swirling bridge, but not much else of note.

As a work of curiosity, Visions Fugitives is successful, even though one gets the impression that Mekong Delta might have been better served by letting loose and performing an even broader original classic composition, featuring vocals, choirs, and whatever else they could find, including their kitchen sinks. Even though the separate thrash tracks comprise most of the better minutes of the album, I feel like their very presence detracts from the experiment. This is not unusual, of course, and even progressive metal stalwarts like Dream Theater have used a format like this with one massive, self-indulgent composition and some shorter fare, but I feel like the flow of this particular LP is crippled by the shifts of intent. Thus, while I prefer it slightly to Kaleidoscope, this should not be counted among Mekong's better works.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

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Mekong Delta - Classics (1993)

I had a feeling that something like was bound to happen, so it's not at all a surprise that all of Mekong Delta's classical cover tracks from prior albums were compiled and released on their own to flit about the attention spans of the handful of people who might actually be sucker enough to fall for this. Here's the quandary: fans of a highly progressive thrash band like this were bound to be few and far between, bless their tight little souls. Those parties interested were already likely to own the band's full-length albums, where most of these covers (and the few originals) had already appeared in their original contexts. So why the fuck would they require a re-release? This band was not exactly Trans-Siberian Orchestra, packing arenas with well known Christmas standards.

It's kind of like Fight Club, in which Tyler Durden comes up with the plan to sell suctioned fat back to rich women as bars of soap. Well, I was not about to fall for it. About the only positive here is that if you were missing the Toccata single from 1989, that track is included, and the 2nd version of "Interludium". You get the Mussorgsky pieces "The Gnome" (released numerous times before this collection), "The Hut of Baba Yaga" (s/t debut) and "Night on a Bare Mountain" (Dances of Death). From The Principle of Doubt, you got the cover of the brief guitar classic "El Colibri", heavily pregnant with Ralph Hubert's bass, and also the Twilight Zone theme. Also included is the "Interludium" (The Music of Erich Zann), and that's all she wrote. The "Sabre Dance" from Kaleidoscope was excluded since the album was fairly recent, and I'm surprised they didn't include their Black Sabbath medley.

In short, it's a collection of things that most attentive fans of Mekong Delta already owned, all in one place for...convenience? The band's renditions of these classics are not unworthy, mind you, they're all quite spastic and lovingly crafted, if never enough impetus to choose them over the original incarnations. But I don't find that having them all cramped together on one disc in any way heightens the experience over hearing their novelty amidst the band's original thrash tracks. I'll reiterate that there's a slight degree of value for those who were missing The Gnome EP or Toccata single, but otherwise stay far away, or at least pick up the 2006 reissue which includes six more tracks (including the originally missing "Sabre Dance").

Verdict: Epic Fail [2/10]

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Mekong Delta - Kaleidoscope (1992)

Kaleidoscope is a step forwards and back for Mekong Delta, at least for the Doug Lee-fronted lineup. Lee has integrated himself very well on this recording, with a presence both ethereal and clinically malign. On the previous album, he felt like a fish oh so slightly out of water, but here you would never know that he wasn't always the preeminent voice of the German band. This is also the most cleanly mixed effort the band had come up with, its clean studio polish going a long way to the distinction of each note cast through its labyrinthine journey into the id. Unfortunately, outside of 3-4 firebrand numbers, Kaleidoscope swerves so far into a pure, dry progressive metal terrain that it comes up well short of the inspirational blaze of their past works.

Not the case for "Innocent?" and "Sphere Eclipse", both of which channel the band's frenetic, high pitched thrashing circa The Principle of Doubt and The Music of Erich Zann. But once the reins are loosened, beginning with their cover of Genesis' "Dance on a Volcano", the album falls off the tracks. Don't get me wrong, they do a fair job of handling the prog/rock staple, but with the tranquil instrumental "Dreaming" and then the middling, melodic turmoil of "Heartbeat" and "Shadow Walker", there are very few riffs of note, despite the sporadic, spastic outbreaks that dominate the latter. Then they lurch into another cover, that of the Aram Chachaturian classic "Saber Dance", metalized in full, curious and spunky, yet somehow less silly than the original. The closing tracks, "Misunderstanding" and "About Science", are actually quite good, the best on the album, the former with some great Ralph Hubert bass work that creates a mesmerizing substrate to the shifting, melodic thrash that brought me right back to what I so enjoyed about the band in the past.

I'll admit though, that even at its best, Kaleidoscope sounds derivative of the time signatures and riffing complexes manifest on prior albums. It's stagnant yet proficient, the type of album that might thrill the prog rocker or intellectual metalian but leave everyone else craving. I've got no problem whatsoever with Lee's performance, or the instrumentation, through which Uwe Balstrusch and Ralph Hubert re-affirm and possibly sharpen their personal skills, but the songs almost unanimously fail to impact me like the band once did even under the shaky tutelage of their earlier vocalist, Wolfgang Borgmann. Mekong Delta is nothing to scoff at here, because they can play most other musicians under the rug even on a bad day, but despite the glint of the production, and the professionalism on parade, this is one of my least favorite in their catalog.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10] (so the rigid lens gives you the perfect view)

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Mekong Delta - Live at an Exhibition (1991)

Live at an Exhibition is the first and only live album from intellectual thrashers Mekong Delta, serving as a stopgap between their Dances of Death and Kaleidoscope efforts in the early 90s. A DVD live (also from 1991) will be released many years after this, but here you've got only the audio content and extremely drag cover art to beckon you. That said, being reasonably impressed with some of the German thrash lives to this point (Destruction's Live Without Sense in particular, Sodom's Mortal Way of Live less so), it's cool to see that some of the other hopefuls were getting in their shots and allowing a neglected international fan base a chance at hearing them in that particular environment.

Of course, this is the Doug Lee-fronted Mekong Delta, so we're not entreated to hearing the classic pipes of Wolfgang Borgmann at the helm, and in the live setting, especially on the band's earlier material, he sounds middling at best. The disc opens with "The Cure" from the s/t album, and the guitars maintain their fusion of rampant, jarring energy, but Lee's clean vocals sound like a Watchtower performance with none of the schizoid genius. "Transgression" and "True Believers" are wisely chosen from the band's recent Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows) LP, and these fare a lot better, since these were Lee's to meddle with in the first place. The rest of the set is rounded out by a few instrumentals ("The Hut of the Baba Yaga" from the debut, "Toccata" from the single of the same name, Mussorgsky's "Night on a Bare Mountain"), a few tracks from The Music of Erich Zann which aren't so bad ("True Lies", "Memories of Tomorrow"), and "Heroes Grief", which is from the debut.

The Principle of Doubt is completely ignored, which is a little strange, since it was the band's best album to that point, but perhaps the band had been sick of playing the material, or there was some sort of agreement. At any rate, it was a mistake, because I would have loved a great live version of "A Question of Trust", at the least. Then again, the sound quality here sort of sucks, with an amateur tone to it through which none of the band's warm, paranoid glow can be cast upon the listener. It's dry and forgettable, and you never feel the convulsions you feel when poring through the studio works. Live at an Exhibition is pretty damned avoidable, not that it's readily available, and I'd recommend you get the 2007 DVD if you can find that, because no matter how it sounds, at least there will be more happening. This is neither inspiring nor well picked, with too many instrumentals interfering with any possible flow to the band's energy.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

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Mekong Delta - Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows) (1990)

The severing of Wolf Borgmann from Mekong Delta feels almost as if someone were clipping the umbilical cord from the band's muse. Even though the man had his flaws, he was surely one of the most distinct voices in German thrash, and his presence on the great trio of iconic albums that jump started this band's legacy would cast a massive shadow on whoever was to follow. But the band also lost Frank Fricke after The Principle of Doubt, who was also a piece of the puzzle through their steady rise to cult status, so it was rather a surprise that one year later, they had a new vocalist in tow and a new album flitting about.

Doug Lee (of the obscure US band Siren) was chosen to join the band after 'Keil's' departure, and he would become the new voice of Mekong Delta for seven years. But despite the fact that the band did a decent job of finding a nice match for their crazed, meandering fusion of tech thrashing wanderlust, he's got some notable differences. He has a more pinched, higher register that is often hurled at the listener in waves of shrieking, and at times he reminds me of another Lee (Geddy), especially where he's given more room to breathe. As for the music, it's not a lot different than The Principle of Doubt or The Music of Erich Zann, with the exception that the novelty of their asylum-like testimonials was starting to wear thin, and you were hearing a lot of material that honored and acknowledged the band's past albums, but did little to surpass them. For example, there are a number of tracks here which use a similar, wrenching tempo similar to "A Question of Trust", but are just not as catchy.

The first eight tracks are all components of the title track, "Dances of Death", and they range from a dark, clean classical guitar intro to the bristling force of "Beyond the Gates" and "Days of Betrayal", in between which are twined some shorter thrashers like "Eruption" and "Outburst". Ralph Hubert and Uwe Baltrusch are on fire, the bass skilled and swerving, the guitars delivered with the same clinical precision as a Realm, Deathrow or Psychotic Waltz. But despite the frenzied level of energy and the thinner, better keyed presence of Lee, none of these are really the highlights of the album. Those are manifest late in the album, through the disconnected tracks "Transgressor" and "True Believers", both coiled tightly with great bass work and punchy psychosis; and the impressive, 10:25 metallization of Modest Mussorgsky's epic "Night on Bald Mountain", Anglicized here to "Night on a Bare Mountain".

It's impressive to hear the band tackle such a unique and noteworthy piece of classical history, and not the first time they've visited this one composer ("The Gnome", which appears here once more as a bonus track, rendering it's native EP worthless once more), and though it's absolutely no substitute for its original form, it's important as another presage of the band's future focus on incorporating classical music directly into their thrash. But in the end, it's just not enough to save this album from the merely 'good' category. Dances of Death (and Other Walking Shadows) does possess some of the best production work of the band's career to date, but so few of its constituent tracks offer more than a few moments of writhing, propulsive confusion and head jerking curiosity. After the three intensifying works leading to its conception, it feels like a clear step down in effectiveness, and it cannot all be pinned on the new singer.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (never saw a place like this)

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Mekong Delta - The Principle of Doubt (1989)

The Principle of Doubt is the third Mekong Delta full length and perhaps the best proof of life of the band's manic, schizo thrash progression to date, before they took a slight dive in quality through their even more highbrow 90s conceptual material. All elements of The Music of Erich Zann have been refined here, carved into even more frenetic blocks of post-modern speed/thrash with the blood of jazz and abstraction coursing through it, and though Wolfgang Borgmann's vocals can still tend towards whiny and annoying, he turns in at least his finest performance at the helm of this band, and coincidentally his last, before the band would acquire Doug Lee from Aaarrg Records labelmates Siren.

This has arguably the strongest opener of the band's entire career in "A Question of Trust", a flipped out diatribe of shifting, thrashing guitars laced through with surgical threads of melody and brilliant, oozing bass lines that create a paranoid, multi-planar dementia. "The Principle of Doubt" itself is quite similar in style, with some cleaner guitar breakdowns, and they continue to layer on the choppy tech thrash with the more moody, lurching "Once I Believed". This trio of tracks alone would represent the pinnacle of the band's 80s work, but they're followed by the charismatic "Ever Since Time Began", with its spastic but memorable vocals in the verse, and the winning streak continues. "Curse of Reality" follows with a throbbing, synthesized martial intro, Borgmann performing some of his eerily close to Peavy Wagner tones, while the drums escalate into the resonance of the slicing chords, and an almost femme vocal line. It's simultaneously the least heavy and most unnerving piece on the first half of the album.

So I suppose it's not a huge surprise when they toss out their frantic, instrumental cover of the "Twilight Zone" theme music, which almost seamlessly blends with the original Mekong Delta fare. A few more static-charged thrashers await in "Shades of Doom" and "The Jester", both of which offer their share of curious composition, though the vocals in the latter do become rather strained in the mellower sequences. "El Colibri" is essentially Ralph Hubert flagellating over the Julio Sagreras original, one of those rare cases of the band's over-indulgence, but well paid for by the album's closer, "No Friend of Mine", which is very well written, with wondrous melodic swells, thick writhing bass and effective, thoughtful chugging.

The Principle of Doubt also sounds cleaner than its two predecessors, and in particular I love the guitar tone, perfectly balanced between airy, rare chords, low end driving mutes and dazzling crescendos of melody. The lyrics revolve around subjects like self determination and the place of the individual within the greater foundation of society, and while they often steer into cliches that don't seem nearly as smart as the musical half of this equation, they seem suitable to the band's conceptual hunger. This album is actually the best place to start if you're mining Mekong's classic catalog for the first time, and it certainly secured the band in the company of other tech thrash wizards like Watchtower, Realm, Toxik, or the then-recent transformation of Deathrow.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10] (we bring real life to your homes)

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Mekong Delta - The Music of Erich Zann (1988)

When you've lifted your album title verbatim from a famous H.P. Lovecraft story, then you owe it to us all to not fuck up, and in no way were Mekong Delta about to still the pendulum that they had started swinging a year prior. The Music of Erich Zahn serves as a direct successor to the s/t debut, not only chronologically, but stylistically; and yet it begins to flex more of the band's classical influence and technicality for a stronger overall impression. This is schizoid speed/thrash metal comparable to Destruction's Release from Agony or Deathrow's anomalous Deception Ignored, though there is perhaps a little less brain busting to absorb in the grander scheme.

I'm not sure if I'll ever understand why Mekong Delta's members felt the need to use their pseudonyms. Perhaps they had an overinflated sense of their own fame, which at this time was only whispered in relatively small circles, but I can't say it's not an entertaining tactic. Legendary drummer Jörg Michael returns as 'Gorden Perkins', and lays down one of his most incredible, intense performances, but perhaps the most distinct element of the band at this point was 'Keil', or vocalist Wolfgang Borgmann, who continues to sound like the asylum bound sibling of Rage's Peavy Wagner (who was also once in the band). Borgmann can offer teeter off key, and it can prove distracting, but what I like most is the tonal, ghostlike vocals he uses primarily on the tranquil outro piece "Epilogue", but also in bits and pieces of the harder hitting material.

Speaking of which, it hits pretty damn hard, the riffs always carefully woven into intricate and interesting patterns. "Memories of Tomorrow" uses the ghostlike vocals alongside a melodic, complex chugging pattern that sees the rhythm section in total freakout mode, and it's one of the brightest gems on the album, but I also love some of the more frenzied material like "Hatred", the manic "Confessions of Madness", or the explosive "True Lies", a song which the band are still making 20 years later. "I, King, Will Come" also deserves a mention for its gradual escalation into the plodding riffs and shrill, dual vocal harmonies. When Borgmann hits the lower end of his range, he sounds even MORE like Peavy Wagner. Do you think? Could it be? I mean, he must have been at least tempted, being that he wrote the lyrics for the first two Mekong Deltas.

"Interludium (Begging for Mercy)" foreshadows the band's future neo-classical direction with some hypnotizing acoustics that explode into chugging and swelling, paranoid string sections, with a nice synth guitar lead. There's not really a sore spot to be had here, but I will say that a few of the tracks do lose my attention span from time to time, in their staggering attack. For one, I don't care for the vocals in the opener "Age of Agony". He eventually starts wailing fruitfully, but they feel a little rough in the verses. "The Finale Deluge" also warrants a mixed reaction. I love most of the guitars, and the vocals are cool enough, but the attention does wane in the waking seconds. That said, The Music of Erich Zann is certainly one of the more adventurous German thrash efforts of the 80s, a virtue that the band will compound over the next decade, able to stir up enough interest that they were never left completely behind like a number of their peers.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (we are goddamn manipulated)

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Mekong Delta - The Gnome EP (1988)

One of the more curious and unique entries into the German thrash/speed field, Mekong Delta would one day be known for their picaresque, manic landscapes and classical conversions. As of The Gnome EP, their first release past the self-titled debut album, they were already showing their love of composers, through "The Gnome" itself, a cover of Mussorgski which has been converted here to an exercise between the guitars and drums. As cool as it is to hear classical music transformed into something heavier, there's unfortunately just not much to this, but a basic interpretation, and clearly nothing special enough to warrant an EP release in its name, even if it's largely a picture disc collector's item.

Granted, it's not alone on this release, but the rest of the tracks are taken from their debut. "The Hut of Baba Yaga" is a splendid, atmospheric, moody instrumental which cycles through spurts of primitive thrash and segues of ambient weirdness. "Without Honor" is a 'raging' piece, with Wolfgang's vocals awfully similar to Peavy Wagner (who wrote the lyrics), but the band provoke a darker reach, like a more atmospheric alternative to something from Execution Guaranteed. "The Cure" is of course another scorcher, and I've always loved how the frightening intro collapsed into the higher pitched vocals and frenetic, clinical riffing, but once again, it's just something we've already heard, and there's no need in buying it twice.

This is such a rarity that it's highly unlikely anyone out there is in danger of being ripped off, but for the hardened collector who won't mind. It doesn't serve as much of a bridge to The Music of Eric Zahn, so it's more of a 'look back' than forward. "The Gnome" is available on the Classics compilation, which in of itself is not a major value, but the inclusion of a batch of the band's spins on composers makes its a superior product, and thus the EP is rendered almost completely worthless. Skip it and head straight for The Music of Eric Zahn, or dial back and appreciate the debut.

Verdict: Fail [2.5/10]

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Mekong Delta - Wanderer on the Edge of Time (2010)

After a decade of silence, Mekong Delta returned in 2007 with their highly recommended comeback album Lurking Fear, and alongside the recent streak of Paradox records, that made for quite an exciting kick to the German technical thrash pacemaker, not only sounding like the band hadn't skipped a beat, but also trumping a number of their 90s efforts. Well, apparently this was not a one time thing, as the band have forged on yet again to create another studio effort, Wanderer on the Edge of Time, and though it's not quite so exciting as its predecessor, this new effort proves there is still life left in the genre, or rather, creative, and puts so many of the young run and gunning 80s worshipers to tremendous shame.

Lurking Fear was a pretty tight knit, manic thrash album which celebrated the wealth of idea distributed near the end of the 80s by the more artistic and technically inclined bands of that genre. To an extent, this continues along that path, with acrobatic guitar work and amazing bass lines that absorb you into this band's continuum of classical music, jazz and metal. Similar to previous Mekong Delta albums Pictures at an Exhibition (1997) and Dances of Death (1990), several of the thrash tracks are separated by classical or experimental segue pieces, all laid out like some forsaken symphony. This is a technique which has often proved divisive on albums like Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth or Pestilence's Testimony of the Ancients, as some listeners are unwilling to grasp the underlying assumptions which mark each transition. Like those albums, I feel that they are largely successful here, and provide a pretty broad experience which is more than simply a head spinning exercise in aggression.

Of these, I enjoyed the intro "Concert Guitar", a subtle and fluid, classical guitar piece which meanders through several veils of mystery. "Interlude 4 - Group" and "Finale" are both impressive pieces of clinical, dexterous thrash with an intense junction of drumming, bass and strings, no mean feat when you consider that almost all the members except bassist Ralph Hubert have only been in the band since 2008...though drummer Alex Landenburg has played in At Vance, Axxis, and Annihilator previously. Speaking of newcomers, the vocal reins here have been assumed by Martin LeMar (of German progressive metal act Tomorrow's Eve), and while he's got a less vibrant and 'insane' tone than Leszek Spiegel, and a safer approach more likely to mirror someone like James LaBrie of Dream Theater, he is still spot on for much of this album.

Though a good portion of the record's 50 minutes and 15 tracks is devoted to such intros and interludes (themselves ranging from thrash to classical), the true meat of the matter are the vocal pieces, and several of these are remarkable. "A Certain Fool (Le Fou)/Movement 1" is a weighted, prog rock effort which slowly gathers in power through swelling, theatrical orchestration and a poignant but reined in performance from LeMar. "The 5th Element (Le Bateleur)/Movement 2" continues to increase the intensity, almost like a bridge from Movement 1 into the stuttering insanity of "The Apocalypt - World in Shards/Movement 3", which is one of the most climactic motions on this record, sure to sate the fan of progressive thrash metal from the late 80s/90s such as Watchtower, Deathrow, Psychotic Waltz, Fates Warning, Paradox, End Amen, and of course....Mekong Delta themselves in their earlier incarnations.

Other highlights include the rising mystique of "King with Broken Crown/Movement 4" and the serpentine, shifting riff-banks of "Mistaken Truth/Movement 7". "Intermezzo/Movement 5", the longest instrumental piece on the album should certainly dazzle the un-initiated among younger fans, who probably think this style was created by Vektor in the past 2-3 years. The one centerpiece of the album I did not find myself absorbed within would be "Affection (L'Amoreaux)/Movement 6", which is a softy, developing ballad with backing vocal harmonies and far too many 'good vibrations' for this listener. Otherwise, I felt myself diving right in!

Ultimately, Wanderer on the Edge of Time is not such a frenetic wake-up call as Lurking Fear was, but my attention rarely waned as I was listening through its contents. Nothing really drags, the musicianship is top notch, and the material accessible enough that it might reach far beyond the cult tech-thrash niche and found a fanbase among the more common progressive metal fans. Hubert has kept this entity alive and fresh with ideas, as well as a cadre of younger musicians who somehow manage to keep Mekong Delta's vision alive without descending into the mundane practices of so many of today's younger thrash metal upstarts. If you're a fan of any of this band's previous works, or of any of the bands I've name dropped above, then I sincerely doubt you will be met with disappointment.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (a small part of what you once lost)

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Mekong Delta - Mekong Delta (1987)

Mekong Delta have long been lauded as one of the first of the 'technical' thrash bands, using progressive rhythms and all manner of experimentation in their sound, though these are encased in a pure thrash/speed metal core. They are also known for a revolving door of various members from peer bands through the years, including Peavy Wagner (Rage), Uli Kusch (Masterplan, ex-Helloween, etc) and Jorg Michael (many bands), the last of whom actually plays on this record. Mekong Delta is probably the most straightforward of their albums, speed metal frosted with progressive thrash leanings;
though it sets up hints at their future.

It's as fast as furious as their albums would ever be. "Without Honour" begins with cerebral guitar wanking which explodes into a speed metal rush. Keil (Wolfgang Borgmann, the band members used alter egos at this point) has a pretty Germanic style to his vocals, in fact they sound suspiciously similar to Peavy's vocals in earlier Rage... "The Cure" begins with some synths and a choppy, tense riff pattern with some flowing taps and mad leads. "The Hut of Baba Yaga" is an instrumental with a jam-like feel. "Heroes Grief" begins with some ambient guitar sludge before it becomes a slower thrash tune with very bizarre vocals, occasionally sounding like old Soundgarden... "Kill the Enemy" is back to your flippy circus thrash that the band executes so well. "Nightmare Patrol" sounds a lot like an early Rage tune, the vocals have a lot of echo to them and the riffs are sporadic and fast. "Shivas Return" is a similar style. "Black Sabbath" is a doomier thrash tribute to the band of the same name, and it's actually the weakest track here, goofy in both concept and execution (they use a lot of Sabbath song titles in the lyrics...ugh). "Back Home" is a decent closer to the album.

The album still sounds pretty fresh today, though on the grittier side. All the instruments are clear, it's not as dirty as other early German thrash albums. I used to be quite fond of this album, but over time the later stuff like The Music of Erich Zahn and The Principle of Doubt have grown on me, while the appeal of the debut has diminished. It's still a solid album and ahead of its time, German speed/thrash fanatics will chew up its interesting riffing and raw, fast sound.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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