MEKONG DELTA

I bought this tape when this came out in 1993 not even looking at songlist. I was a bit disappointed cos it wasn't next 'true' Mekong Delta's release. But I think band needed to release something like that. Well known classical themes arranged and performed by metal band. Let's see, Hut Of Baba Yaga was on the first band's album, The Gnome on second, Toccata was released as a single in 1989, Night On A Bare Mountain is on Dances Of Death, both Twilight Zone and El Colibri taken from thrid album. Ok I'm buying it. I think Sabre Dance of Kaleidoscope should be added but the pieces complied on here are enough satisfying to enjoy Mekong Delta in their classical form. Solid 3 stars and I recommend this compilation prior to terrible Pictures At An Exhibition. Here's classical Mekong Delta.

I don't know...

First I have to say I'm huge ELP fan. I really love their early records. But Pictures At An Exhibition is the album I don't dig. And I also don't dig Mekong Delta's version of Pictures. I remember when I first heard this record I though : 'omg what a nightmare'. It's really hard to take it at one spin. I don't know maybe if guys shortened it a bit or played it in some different way I'd give it more than just 2 stars that I'm not even sure it really deserves. I'm rating it by 2 stars only because it's not fair to treat massacred Mussorgskys pieces rating it by 1 star. It's still a classic. Just presented in strange way. I prefer other Mekong Delta's releases. This one isn't worth of spin cos it may cause constant depression.

Just take a look at this cover isn't it creepy? Music Of Erich Zann is secend Mekong Delta album and we can easily hear the band was very consequent in their style. Weird technical thrash metal. Not really far from what Living Death (other band of Mekong Delta guitarists) shown. Most of the material in here is fast and furious and really extremely weird. With first sounds of Age Of Agony we sneak into the twisted world of gnoms and creepy illusions. All upside down. True Lies is very interesting piece because similar ideas guys used for their epic concept Dances Of Death. Hatred is very aggressive track mostly due to crazy vocals of Keil. Interludium is instrumental piece filled with classical music elements. Memories Of Tomorrow is also very interesting track and again I can hear something that was later used on Dances Of Death. I, King, Will Come is the slowest song on this album and more simple than the rest. Some Black Sabbath-like riffs. Well not bad. Epilogue isn't metal song at all. We have mostly vocals here, lack of guitars and drums. Something good for the end. But the last on this release is instrumental creepy track The Gnom. It's fabulous adaptation of Mussorgsky's classical piece. To sum it all up. Music Of Erich Zann is good album. Maybe it isn't must-have release but still recommended for fans of thrash metal. And this one I have in that remastered and new mixed version. It isn't far from original sound. It's just a bit louder and clearer. I rate this by 3.5 stars.

This is probably the weirdest thing I've ever heard. And definitely the weirdest metal release I've heard. I can really appreciate ambitions but I don't think I'd force anyone to listen to this album. Production is terrible and the songs on this release are totally sensless. What a mess. I don't know how much money guys had to record this stuff but I guess it wasn't enough for good production. Sometimes it seems like guys play out of tune and I know they are excellent musicians. So what happend? It's the last album with Keil as vocalist and I think the change that was to come was good thing for the band. Don't ask me for highlights of this album cos I'm not finding any. Sometimes band plays 'less terrible' like in title song and Once I Believed but I don't want to spoil your afternoon recommending this. 2 stars given only because I really like this band plus fans can buy it to complete collection. BTW album was remixed and remeastered so maybe now it's completely different release. I review the first version of this album.

Kaleidoscope sounds better than previous Mekong Delta albums but I don't think I could say it's the best band's release. It will be always after Dances Of Death. Of course it's still excellent music. Innocent proves that Mekong Delta were one of the most original metal bands. It's hard to describe that music. We can say it's techno-thrash, extreme avant-grade metal... but it's still not enough to describe what they play. It's not simple music but still very melodic. Sphere Eclipse has definitely something to do with Yes Heart Of Sunrise but it's still thrash metal piece. Complicated and extremely great;). Dance On A Volcano is Genesis cover and it's played with so much precision that sounds almost the same as original version. Heartbeat, Shadow Walker and Misunderstaning keep the high standards of this release. Sabre Dance is adaptation of famous Armenian 'war dance' classical piece. A little nice tune. I don't really get final song About Science. I'm not saying it's bad. The idea is quite in vein of whole album but not so memorable unfortunatelly. I think that little demonic technical thrash metal presented by the band is totally satisfying to any prog metal fan. This album like previous ones was remixed and remastered but I won't tell you what's the change cos I got first pressing of this record. Solid 4 stars.

Mekong Delta is the self-titled full-lenght debut studio album by German progressive metal act Mekong Delta. My introduction to Mekong Delta was their second album The Music of Erich Zann (1988) which is an album I´ve owned for many years. It´s been a dust collector though and it´s only recently that I´ve gotten the courage back to seek out the rest of Mekong Delta´s discography.

This debut album by the band has a rather funny history as all musicians have other more international and not German sounding names even though they are all German citizens. This was alledgedly an attempt to disguise the true identities of the musicians involved but I suspect that it was an attempt to disguise that the band was actually from Germany. German metal bands were generally not in high course outside of Germany in the early to mid eighties ( with a few exceptions of course) mostly because of the strong accents that mared many lead vocalists from Germany in that period. The album features many great musicians from the German metal scene though and Mekong Delta have nothing to be ashamed of with this release.

Behind some of the international sounding names we find musicians like drummer Jörg Michael ( ex-Rage and later of Stratovarius fame), bassist and main-man behind the band Ralph Hubert ( owner of record label Aaarrg and sound engineer for bands such as Warlock, Steeler and Living Death), and a couple of other ex-Rage musicians.

The music is a mix of traditional heavy metal and thrash metal all played in ( for the time) great technical style. I talked about the strong accents that mared many German vocalists in the period but lead vocalist Wolfgang Borgmann does not share that problem. He is an excellent vocalist with no accents at all. Imagine Chris Cornell ( Soundgarden, solo) singing in more traditional heavy metal style and you´re just about there. A great asset to the band. The original LP version included a track called Black Sabbath which is a tribute to that band and features Black Sabbath song titles as lyrics. That song is for unknown reasons unfortunately not included on the remastered Zardoz music CD version which includes the three songs Toccata, Black Betty and Interludium II from the Toccata (1989) single instead. There are some great metal tracks on the album and I can´t help to bang my head whenever I listen to songs like Back Home ( in Hell) and The Cure. Progressive rock fans might find it interesting that Mekong Delta covers Mussorgsky´s The Hut of Baba Yaga which another famous progressive band also had their fingers on about sixteen years earlier.

The musicianship is excellent and in addition to the powerful vocal performance by Wolfgang Borgmann I also have to mention Jörg Michael´s drumming. He is such a precise and powerful drummer and even then he sounded so much better than most other drummers in the genre.

The production is pretty good considering that most metal productions from 1987 sounded hollow and thin.

I´m really happy about this album but it has aged a bit and remains firmly stuck in the eighties. For fans of eighties heavy metal/ thrash metal this is a very worthy effort though and it fully deserves 3 stars from me.

After a promising but mistreated for the production, debut album and a sequel much more mature and finished comes this third effort of the dark band Mekong Delta.

The sound is much better than in the fisrt two albums, but still can improve. Anyway, the dark and dull sound contributes to make stronger the oppressive atmosphere of the most of the tracks. Even though this album doesn't tell a story from the begining to the end as 'The Music Of Erich Zann' did, there is a guiding line that joins all the lyrics matter, the music, and even the artwork, making a masterly whole effect.

A Really original creation that may surprise those that doesn't know about this unfairly underated band.

Mekong Delta OMG yeah I was pretty shocked first time I listened to this album. I was in high school and it was my first approach with this band. I didn't understand this music back then. I mean I listened to Voivod but to their least complex albums (War And Pain, Angel Rat). Later of course I discovered their techno-thrash released and loved it. But with Mekong Delta it wasn't so keen. Mekong Delta is German band but they have never sounded like Kreator or ever more progressive Vendetta. Mekong Delta took a lot from prog rock bands of 70's like Yes and Emerson Lake and Plamer. So this album starts with 19 minutes long suite called Dances Of Death. The structure is very similar to ELP's Tarkus and we can find even same progressions here. But the music isn't filled with keyboard passages. There are no keys on this album at all. Instead of that we have thrashy guitar riffs played very fast. True virtuosity. Vocals rather 'demonic' high pitched but intriguing. Music bizarre and complex. Yes. Mekong Delta. Beyond The Gates and Days Of Betrayal two main parts of epic title suite are based on the same motive which is driving force of Dances. The whole stuff doesn't bore me at all. I listen to it and enjoy every minute. Side B of this album includes 3 separate songs. Mussorgksi's Night On A Bare Mountain in Mekong Delta's adaptation is one of the weirdest tracks I've ever heard in my life. I can enjoy it from time to time. I have to be in mood for that kind of stuff. Anyway Dances Of Death is my favorite Mekong Delta album. In its genere is excellent.

Out of left field...

This came out in 1988 and almost defined technical thrash (along with Watchtower perhaps). Virtuouso progressive riffs that just didn't sound like they belonged in a thrash metal song, complex fast drumming that was ahead of its time and a dischordant, wierd-ass, manic feel to it all. I remember my ideas of what to expect from music being challenged listening to this for the first time.

Age of Agony is a reasonably straight forward (relatively speaking) fast thrash, True Lies has one of the most interesting riffs I've heard along with some challenging chromatics and fast drumming with many time changes. Confessions of Madness is more stright ahead medium pacer with a cracking thrash section with solos at the end. Hatred is a difficult one, absolutely manic and hard to listen to. Interludium is a masterpiece incorporating a real quartet or orchestra with crunchy guitars (interesting idea back in 1988!). Prophecy is another fast one which cracks from the start but sorta loses its way (only a bit). Memories of Tomorrow is one of my faves, pretty much perfect melodic techno mid pacer. I King Will Come is sloooow, i remember thinking it must have been slowed down in the studio when I first heard it, but it's not, it's deliberately played slower for effect, brilliant. The Final Deluge finished with a flurry of solos from both guitars and bass, it cranks. The last two songs are exactly what they say, epilogues of the quiter atmospheric type.

The things that let this album down are some strained off-key vocals, a good sound, but without the decent bottom end the first album had, and a couple of moments that don't work. But if you wanna hear some riffs that you may never have heard before, some great technical thrashy solos, bass solos and some really challenging music then check it out.

MEKONG DELTA move further down the progressive thrash trail.

The progressiveness of MEKONG DELTA's music had steadily increased up to this point reaching the climax on their previous album 'Dances of Death' with a 19 minute tech thrash epic and a 10 minute long arrangement of Mussorgsky's 'Night on Bare Mountain', on Kaleidoscope we see another extrapolation of the progressive thrash sound that the band is renowned for.

The instrumentation is a lot more furious on this album and it seems to have a lot more cohesion instrumentally than previous efforts with Uwe Baltrusch busting out some schizophrenic technical riffs and some shredding solos. Peter Haas' drums are the best that the band has ever had, very technical and syncopated, there is never a dull moment or the opportunity for variations or a fill that passes by. Mysteriously though the leader of the band Ralph Hubert who plays bass and produces the band's records is at times noticeably absent from the mixing which is especially odd considering he was the one who probably mixed it, but he does come to the fore with his concert guitar playing which contributes some of the best moments on the album. The vocals don't really impact on the music too much they actually remind me a lot of Geddy Lee now that I think about it and they play more of a supportive role in the music.

Sphere Eclipse is an early highlight on the album, it's a great mid paced technical thrash song with paranoid technological lyrics a la VOIVOD. Dance on a Volcano (yes you read that right, a GENESIS cover from a technical thrash band) came as a great surprise to me, it's a very interesting translation into the thrash metal format and the results are outstanding (although I'm sure a lot of GENESIS fans would be far from impressed), easily one of the best songs on the album. Dreaming is a fantastic classical composition for the acoustic guitar with some great supportive work from the drums. Heartbeat sees us going back to the mid-paced brooding techno-thrash format in fine fashion with a great moody bass intro (one of the few times you really hear it). Shadow walker is another fantastic techno-trhash highlight with a great extended solos, and some blistering drum work, it shares a lot of similarities to early VOIVOD. Sabre-Dance is a translation of Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian's work with some great harmonised guitars, it's not as dynamic or emotive as many of their other classical-thrash hybrids but it's a fantastic rendition none the less.

Kaleidoscope is another gem from MEKONG DELTA's golden period although maybe not as fast and furious as the bands previous outputs the creativity and progressiveness is very strong. Highly recommended to fans of technical thrash like VOIVOD, WATCHTOWER and CORONER.