Behind...

Gleefully dancing waltzers spotted at various sites around Austria have never been a rarity; after all, the famed “Blue Danube” has been conceived on those shores… sorry, banks. However, the most consummate waltzers over there seem to reside far from the shine and lustre of Vienna and Salzburg. They can be found only by the more adventurous tourists, those who’d be willing to venture into the wild west of the country, where the borders with Switzerland and Liechtenstein wind and unwind through impenetrable mountains and deep treacherous rivers.

Chill out, the road to the small town of Frastanz, where these talented artists can be found, has been very well carved nowadays; and it’s surely very well worth taking, especially in May when this fabulous fair takes place there, and where the finest waltzing pirouettes, possibly in the whole world, can be enjoyed. And not only but the pirouettes released on the album reviewed here revealed a team with a penchant for some truly captivating, totally arresting progressive metal.

This is an eccentric outlandish take on the mentioned genre, think a mesmerizing cross between Psychotic Waltz’ second and the one-album-wonder Manitou (“Entrance”, 1995), with excellent clean operatic vocals akin to the ones of Midnight (Crimson Glory), only lower-pitched and a tad less dramatic. The deceptive serenity of the opening short tractate “Behind” can hardly suppress the seeping drama with the restless virtuoso bass and the roaring drums creating a sinister vortex, the latter erupting on the brilliant “Advanced in Years”, a complex labyrinth of dark moods and hectic riff-mosaics which wind and unwind in complex configurations, with Oriental motifs rising to the surface for an even more spell-binding presentation. “Generation Isolated” is an eclectic masterpiece, combining doomy/balladic layouts with abrupt speedy accumulations, the band preserving the same eventful structure for the dark atmospheric “Madame Pest”, a marginally more minimalistic piece which seductive lyricism gets violated by the surreal atonal rhythms on “Schlaflos Mude”, another tenebrous saga with great enchanting melodic tunes embedded as well. Mentioning melody, it takes the upper hand on “Ecstasy”, finally a full-fledged ballad with a soothing meditative main motif, an anti-ecstatic but thoroughly compelling closure to this magnum opus.

Again, this is an unusual surreal listen which will capture the listener’s attention both with the high degree of professionalism exhibited from every department, and with the dark weird operatic atmosphere, one that will also recall “A Sceptic’s Universe”, the Spiral Architect only outing. However, the presentation here is not as nervy and by no means as dynamic; this is a slow-burning exercise in complex musicality, the more energetic occurrences not always heralded, raising the element of surprise sky-high, as the fan never knows when a seemingly lyrical passage would get disrupted by a more aggressive spasm. But those remain just that, spasms, unfettered carvings on an immaculately laid-out canvas, a patiently-woven tapestry of uncanny musical composure, with the macabre and the unknown only a few notes away, the singer very nicely supporting the mood swings with his outstanding dramatic versatile performance.

Sadly, this unique recording never received a distinct sequel; the follow-up “Die Flucht” contained a few of its outlandish elements, but is by-and-large a swing towards alternative/avant-garde rock with the metal completely phased out by the time of the third slab’s emergence. Each of the band’s subsequent albums is worth hearing if you’re into this kind of music, with “Schlage Mein Herz…” displaying some suppressed metallic vigour again for a change. I’m pretty sure this fair still takes place over there, on regular bases… only that the waltzers have acquired more conventional, less challenging pirouettes, be it due to ageing or to (un)timely descended musical sobriety.