THE MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN

This is the best of the original Mekong Delta albums. The guitar work is nothing short of spectacular with brilliant playing that reaches a depth few thrash bands ever came close to (Laaz Rockit is a critically underrated thrash band for you thrash fans out there).

The album centers itself around sounding like a modern thrash version of classical music themes. Tracks like Interludium are mysterious and moving with classical lines spread throughout and a real treat not only for fans of metal but fans of classical as well. The first half of the record is better than the 2nd in my opinion, but throughout the technical playing is excellent. This, along with Watchtower's two releases, are key to the early development of progressive metal, specifically progressive thrash. The tone on this album is of note, both the bass and the guitars have some rich tones to them to complement the intensity of certain "classics" sections.

If you liked Metallica but always hoped for something more, I'd suggest looking at this record, as it's some of Mekong Delta's best work and has a certain depth that more famous thrash bands never reached.

'The music of Erich Zann' is a decent follow up to MEKONG DELTA's self titled debut and shows a few more glimpses of the brilliance that was to come. The production on this album is unfortunately a lot poorer than on the previous one though, a lot thinner and grittier and not in the good thrash way. There are some great songs on here though which makes up for that, opener 'Age of Agony' is a great technical thrash song with some of the best riffs on the album. 'Memories of tomorrow' is indicative of the style of progressive thrash that would be evident on their masterpiece 'Vision's Fugitives', with more thrashy atonal riffs for the verse and a triumphant and melodic chorus, the sheer pacing of the song is great, there is some furious double kick work here driving it along too. 'The Gnom' is my favourite classical-thrash hybrid song to date from the band with some compelling guitar work featuring some interesting harmonisation and some brooding beastly mid paced double kick.

The instrumentation on this album is superb, the guitars provide some great thrashin' riffage and the solos are fairly musical for thrash. The drums are particularly good, great syncopation and technicality, they really add a lot to the music and make the songs a lot more interesting and along with the bass they make for a formidable rhythm section. The vocals don't seem to fit very well with the music in my opinion, they are quite high pitched heavy metal/power metal type vocals except a lot more aggressive, they don't detract from the music too much though.

MEKONG DELTA had failed to reach their full potential at this point but better things were certainly to come, they had shown great promise and churned out some great thrash songs but it hadn't quite gelled and they had a few shortcomings, for example on this album they reworked and redid one of the classical-thrash hybrid songs from their debut completely unnecessarily and didn't add anything new to it which is a disappointing recurring theme throughout their career unfortunately. A worthwhile album for curious thrash fans none the less.

After a positive experience with Mekong Delta's debut, I was hungry for more of their material. Taking the name of one of H.P Lovecraft's better known tales, 'The Music Of Erich Zann' is the second album by these German thrashers, and despite a short time between the release of the two albums, there has been some significant development regarding the sound of the band. While the overall style of the band has improved however, it lacks the same naive charm that first attracted me to the debut. This has resulted in a sophomore that I more or less regard on equal grounds with the first.

From the first minute of music here onward, Mekong Delta are certainly not the band that was making straightforward, slightly offbeat thrash on their self-titled. Here, they have evolved into a much more technical and classically-leaning act. The improvements are most noticeable in the guitar riffs here. Instead of an early Voivod-esque style of slightly dissonant riffing, Mekong Delta turn their sights on neoclassical leads, harmonies, and complex instrumental passages. Also notable to the second wave of Mekong Delta is the most greater influence of classical music, particularly an instrumental segment here that contrasts guitars with eerie violins, creating a very modern piece of metal-fused classical music. The symphonic thing has been done countless times in metal, but its rare to hear it compliment the existing mood that the metal would have created on its own.

The downside of 'The Music Of Erich Zann' are the vocals. On the self-titled debut, I loved Wolfgang Borgmann's really energetic delivery. It felt really unpredictable, with him sometimes going for a melodic approach, or a thrashy rasp, or even a falsetto wail that would send chills down my spine. This time around, these things are still there, but they feel arranged in a much less effective way. Borgmann's voice also feels much weaker, especially with the falsettos, which come off as flat and borderline irritating. The rest of the music here is generally more intelligent and stronger than what Mekong Delta was doing on the debut, but this drags the band back down a bit. Largely due to the vocals as well, there aren't any songs that got into my head here, whereas on the debut, I found myself remembering some of the best moments of that album for days to come.

'The Music Of Erich Zann' is certainly an improvement overall for Mekong Delta, although I cannot call it a resounding success in every respect. In their transit to a more serious, and progressive style of thrash music, they seem to have lost some of their raw magic. However, this band's sophomore is a much more promising work, and hopefully on subsequent albums, they will take these intriguing new developments and refine them.