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Magma - Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh CD (album) cover

MEKANÏK DESTRUKTÏW KOMMANDÖH

Magma

 

Zeuhl

4.29 | 1161 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Dim
Prog Reviewer
4 stars Before you read on, I have no idea how to aproach reviewing this kind of music in anyway, so excuse my lack of deatail. My first encounter with zeuhl, and I'm extremely impressed. I cant understand a single word they're saying, and the music is not pretensious or virtuosic like what progressive scene was all about back in the day. The album continuosly flows, and never breaks the atmosphere it creates from song one to 7 (NO, I am not going to attempt spelling any of the lobain words). Operatic vocals with some horns and pianos are what drive this album with very few electric instruments except an electric guitar playing little arpegios and lead lines. Now I will attempt reviewing the music...

The album starts abruptly with some piano and simple drums, after a while Vander, and his merry group of men come in with their vocals, just for the women of the group to bounce right after them. The setting of the song moves often from then on out, but even on first listen you realise the piano, horns and guitar play the exact same chords/notes as the vocals at the same time. After this song, the next song starts quickly to go into some short phrases, then shout whatever they are all singing in short bursts, accompanied by horns. This song also debuts Vanders organ in the album, and some really cool snare work towards the middle of the song while the females are singing the same phrase over and over. The song then climaxes, then goes right into the next song just like the last transition. The into to this song is fun with two piano's palying off each other and some WEIRD stuff played on the guitar. By this point, I am starting to think the female vocalists are the primary vocals in this album, I dont know any other albums, so I cant tell you if that is the usual magma trend. After some ensembles by both vocal groups, a nice instrumental outro goes into the next song... which starts on the phrae the females kept on repeating in song number two. This song is just like the last couple of songs, but I am told that this particular song "de zeuhl wortz mekanik" is considered the holy song of all kobaia, but I am a super noob to this music and religion so I have no idea what I'm saying. If you want me to be honest, the rest of the album kinda flows with this trend of piano intro, vocal bouncing, short instrumental, climax, outro. Except song number five, where whoever the lead vocalists of each group start screaming there lungs out and sound like they're about to have a panic attack. This may sound like the album is repetetive and boring, but every song has a new aspect to each of the couple of elements I siad, and is extremely great to listen to.

The first time I tried listening to this, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, with weird shreeking people and simple music, I was immediatly turned off, but after about two more listens, I just wanted to listen it it more and more, its infectious and is amazingly fun to listen to. The album as a whole, is the essence of zeuhl, no doubt about it, and a great place to start with this genre.

*EDIT* After the hype of the first listens, the album gets very dull, definately not cut out for daily usage.

4****

Dim | 4/5 |

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