Disillusion - Gloria
- Released: 2006
- Label: Metal Blade
- Rating:
Before I start, anyone who knows me knows that I have praised Disillusion’s former album Back to Times of Splendor endlessly. It was a landmark in the progressive death metal genre and stands as one of my all time faves. It was a work created by gods.
I have been waiting for a follow-up since the final note played on their album and now, I have it. Upon inspection of the CD cover, I was immediatly unsettled. The new album is called Gloria and depicts a very crappy cover picture of some face covered in…something. A far cry from the beautfiful artwork that graced their former album. I thought “Whatever, who gives a shit about cover art, it’s about the music” and I popped it in my Discman. I didn’t hit play just yet though. I had this very strong feeling that this album wouldn’t be as good as their debut. I just wouldn’t be able to take it if this album stunk. I mean, all of my most anticipated releases (Mercenary, Iron Maiden, Soulscar) that I’ve been waiting on for years have all been disappointing, but I finally mustered the strength to push play…and I just don’t know what to say.
This isn’t Disillusion, that’s for sure – at least not the one we know. This is a whole new band. Not literally, of course, but have you ever heard of bands making a sound change? This is the biggest sound change I’ve ever heard in my life. Remember the epic, touching, progressive songs of Back To Times Of Splendor? Well, forget about them. That sound has been replaced by dark, industrial, gothic crap!
Maybe I’m just closed-minded. Maybe I was expecting something different. Maybe I just have good taste and this album fails in nearly every possible way. Whatever it is, this is not only a disappointing album and disappointing follow-up, but it also stands as one of the worse CDs I’ve heard all year. Firstly, as I’ve mentioned before, Disillusion have changed their sound remarkably to an industrial gothic sound. Thus, all their songs are average length for this genre and all clock in at an average of 4 minutes. In these 4 minutes, we are subjected to crap. All the basic elements of industrial crap is in here – weird noises, a muffled digital voice, and danceable beats. The album is devoid of anything that made Back to Times of Splendor so amazing.
My best comparisons would be to NIN, Rob Zombie, The Prodigy, Rammstein and other crappy bands of that nature. Disillusion show just a bit more class and sophistication than those bands. I really want to elaborate on how bad this album is, but let’s just get into everything all at once.
The vocals are terrible and get on my nerves. Anyone that has heard their former album knows that Vurtox has an amazing voice and can do nearly anything with it. He can do growls and shrieks and has an incredbile clean voice that can shatter mountains. On this album you can kiss all of these features about his voice goodbye. Here, we find his voice digitally altered on nearly every goddamn track and it never goes beyond a near spoken word way of “singing” the vocals. Whenever he does get a chance to sing, it’s nowhere near as powerful as it could be due to him keeping quiet and reserving the power to suit the mood of the album. It should be a crime that he wasted his talents so much on this album. The growls and shrieks are also a thing of the past. I have a very good comparison to give you an idea. If you’ve ever seen the South Park episode “You’ve been served” where the gang has to outdance a bunch of black kids, there’s a flashback of Butters tap-dancing and a muffled voice sings “I’ve got something in my pocket”. That is exactly what Vurtox sounds like on this album and for nearly its entire duration. Whenever he doesn’t sound like him, he sounds like a digital Cher.
The music isn’t nearly as breathtaking as before…actually, it isn’t at all. It’s very boring and tedious gothic industrial with nothing technical or original about it. One might swear that Disillusion was trying to cash in by sounding more modern, but I can’t even see this becoming popular in the modern clique because it sucks so bad. These songs go nowhere, are far from catchy, feature crappy lyrics and sound the same as each other. There are no solos to be found. There are no more soaring riffs and climaxes that can send chills down the spine. No majestic atmospheres. All there is left is what sounds like one goddamn riff, dance rythms and unintelligent writing.
Maybe the band was trying to be artistic on this album, just as on their former, but I find nothing to appreciate on this album. I find no emotional passges or sincere performances. There are no hidden double meanings to the lyrics and no melodies that just allow someone to escape and drift off. All that is present on this album is shallow, droning sludge that I can’t even see fans of this genre getting into. The band mainly sticks to one formula the entire album and does nothing. This album was clearly uninspired and it even sounds like the band was bored making it. I guess Back to Times of Splendor had used up all their good ideas.
It’s one thing to feature bad songs, but to feature one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard is another thing. “Don’t Go Any Further” is capable of inflicting suicidal thoughts to the pope. It begins with a horrible and overlong spoken word intro (muffled of course) and continues this way for the entire goddamn song, with music added to it eventually. Whenever it does take a break from its flow, all it is is “don’t go any further” being said over and over again. What the fuck? Who wrote this, The Incredible Hulk? A monkey? A song like this makes me not only question the intelligence of the band members but also their sanity. It’s terrible! I’m actually listening to it right now just to remind me of how much I hate it and wow, I really really hate it. The same thing can basically be said about every other song on the album, I guess.
There is, however, one small glimmer of hope on this album. It’s saved for the second-to-last track. “Too Many Broken Cease-Fires” is as close as it comes to sounding like Disillusion should. There are no techno elements, no digitalizing, and reminds me somewhat of “Alone I Stand In Fire”. It is this album’s one redeeming factor.
I know this review wasn’t very elborate and didn’t go into depth, but I just have trouble writing a review for this one. It’s just god-awful. I know I gave enough info to give you an idea of why I don’t like it and the remarkable change of sound they have had, but you’ll have to hear it for yourself. This album is terrible and I don’t know what the band was thinking when they made it. It took Disillusion over 5 years to make Back to Times of Splendor, and after hearing Gloria I wouldn’t mind waiting another 5 years for a third album. In fact, I don’t mind waiting an eternity. I have totally lost faith in this band.
Brent C. | 09/09/2006