Disillusion is the name of more than one artist:
1) German metal band
2) Finnish rock
3) Slovak death metal
1) Formed in the 1994 in the back province of West Saxony (Germany) and based in Leipzig since 2001, Disillusion quickly matures to something of an underground institution. Already at the very beginning the band around mastermind Schmidt is enclosed by a unique charisma which leaves no doubt about the fact that this band could become a real high-flyer on their hard way to uncompromising music. The first breakthrough comes with Rajk Barthel and Jens Maluschka joining the band, two congenial artists with whom Schmidt produces the "Three Neuron Kings" EP - tellingly to a large extent in their own studio in order to allow for the greatest possible control of the work progress and to put every single minute into music. A kind of perfectionism which sets standards for their further career.
Disillusion follow the release of the EP with a tour through Germany during which they can further strengthen their reputation as hot live band and after all get some space on the Legacy sampler, including recording. Instead of having produced only one song they go about even two. In doing so, the major work is not carried out at the appointed studio of Legacy but at their own mixing board and at TAM recordings, their longtime partners who back in the nineties had already recorded the first two demo tapes "Subspace Inanity" and "Red". The concept EP "The Porter" already shows the same quality and density of the future "Back To Times Of Splendor" and is released on the Voice Of Life Records indie label.
The rights to the planned LP are secured by Metal Blade who are so convinced by the ingeniousness of the new arrival to grant even four delays. After 18 months' time of production in April 2004 BTTOS is released and is rightly being hailed internationally as one of the best debut albums. In interviews the band themselves here and there compare their work in a tongue-in-cheek comment to the opulence of Peter Jackon's "Lord Of The Rings". An allusion that is perfectly true as the work loosely woven around the background story comes up with floods of images and an abundance of details on an unexpected cineastic scale and all the while easily combs through all variants of extreme metal without being cheesy or affected at all. Disillusion follow their album with a European tour in the course of which some selected shows with great line-up are played with several guest artists. Afterwards the trio together with the auteurs from Film-M adjourn to the studio again in order to write songs for their second album "Gloria". The work slogan: burning asphalt instead of beaten tracks.
In October 2006 finally the new record is released and promptly polarises opinion in the music scene. As a result the traditionalists' faces fall as they had wished for a sequel to BTTOS. Enthusiasm however amongst those who have seen BTTOS as a perfect inventory of all those things contemporary metal is able to achieve and who are now hungering for new impressions. They won't be let down, and die-hard fans may rejoice in a synopsis of the previous works which builds bridges between the debut album which was full of natural elements and the dystopian imagination of the two previous EPs.
"Gloria" evokes an oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere and draws the picture of a cold world in which might rage the same emotions as on the previous album but unfold in a completely different way. The fact that the musical framework has shifted and enlarged with every release is not so much cause but rather the consequence of the ingenious imagination in the typical Disillusion style. If BTTOS resembles Peter Jackson, then the genre-blasting "Gloria" is true to the tradition of David Lynch. As much as people's positions differ on what is the "better" album they agree upon their acknowledgement of Disillusion as a selection of contemporary avant-garde metal. They are gravediggers and re-creators who have been overdue for a long time.
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