Nach ewigen Gesetzen

Hailing from the not-anymore so vast Germany is a septet of young musicians, that have taken a liking to collaborating with each other, in order to create something the small medieval town of Regensburg hasn't seen in a long time, or to be more precise, seldom. Heavy metal seems to be ever-present in the flourishing land of Bavaria, yet unlike other parts of Europe, where the extreme music scene has concentrated and centralised itself, only to spread its tentacles out to a little more isolated parts, Bavaria has remained a place for mediocre musicians (at least in the heavy metal scene), that create watered down versions of clones of clones. It seems that no matter which sub-genre you observe, there is not much happening at the time being, other than people promoting themselves for seemingly no apparent reason.

"Phdonos Deon" (Greek for envy of the Gods) have been around since 2006, but it wasn't until 2008 that they tightened the line-up and managed to organise themselves in a way, that is actually productive. Regensburg is by no means a heavy metal stronghold, so actually organising such a group is hell, let alone recording. They descibe themselves as being a substitute for the dull and uninspiring contemporary zeitgeist of metal. So they state, that the ideal way of dealing with the arid nowadays banal formulaic approach to this form of extreme music. The stlye this band attempts to be tangent to has in fact classical roots and has a hell lot more expressive force behind it. The cultural exploring of one's roots always leads to creating new ideas, finding old motives and formulas for helpful in developing one's own style, wherever you may begin, be it literature, philosophy or in this case, music.

I remember a few years back, when labels/magazines such as Nuclear Blast or EMP dominated the metal scene here in Bavaria and with the sonstant worship of bands such as Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir, which were very popular at the beginning of the new millenium. A lot of German reviewers back then stated that they also had roots in classical/symphonic music, which of course, is bull. Yeah so they used keyboards, but the structure of the songs was traditional in modern terms. What you can find here, however, is the interesting blend of actual jazz elements or the occasional nostalgic baroque or romantic homage, which fits well and creates something fresh, that is all to seldom in today's scene. While the music itself can be shoved into a drawer labelled "metal", what would actually be happening is force induced categorising. Phdonos Deon is a blend out of the virtousity of any musical genre that comes to mind (excluding the electronic-based ones maybe), be it jazz, metal or classical. The only problem that arises from this tropical blend, is that it departs from every and any of these genres, the nearest being classical music, which also inevitably leads to a departure from each and every ideal that these singular entities represent. With some basic effort, you can create something that sounds like metal, but in fact is only a homage, or a cultural cousin, that just happens to see thing a little bit differently than its nihilistic, anti-norm counterpart. It's like saying usage of trumpets resembles a marching band, or usage of eggs resembeles a pie. Describing the music as "melodic death metal" is only surpassed by the falsity of even calling it metal.

By no means should this reduce the quality and enjoyment of the music, as a consumer good or as means of entertainment. But as the philosophy of metal suggests a certain mental outlook that influences the music as a whole, by everything that stands behind the music, be it the instruments or the people playing them and how they present themselves. Trying to combine the ideals of musical prodigies with the anti-idealism of metal is flat, in fact it's flatter than f-flat. It's fatal. "Nach ewigen Gesetzen" is a nice coat of caramelised sugar on top of the ugly imagery heavy metal stands for. Superficially speaking, one might hint that this is just another "blend of blastbeats and operatic singing", when it is in fact really one of today's well-inspired juvenile attempts at actually trying to make good music. Now that sounds naturally bad when put into expression, when in fact it's meant to be positive. The harmony between the vocal ranges (grunts and clear) and instruments is there. It's heavy, it's through and it's massive, sonsidering they recorded it without a label. Technically, the album is over the top, with changes in rhythm and melody, that I wouldn't even understand if my life were on the line. It sounds good, it is there and it will return.

"Nach Ewigen Gesetzen" can mean "According to eternal Laws" or "After Eternal Laws", yet the cover contains elements that puzzle after closer attention. While the minimalistic and simple portrayal of what seems to be mountain-resembling waves in a dark and greenish night would be enough of a symbol that induces human emotions to a romantic level, the comical figure arising from one of the waves brings the certain "Marvel Comics"-touch to the whole, contributing to an overall juvenile undertone or tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and aesthetics. Though this does not go as far as trying to bond romanticism to some form of grotesque pop-art, it is unnecessary and unfitting.

Understanding means nothing if one does not insert his/her findings in a greater circle, or cycle of all things and so the fatal effect of everything that moves towards nothingness with time and space itself being only human perceptual parameters. So when a human decides to put some of that all-encompassing energy floating about into something other through the power of will, in this case music, then one should always be prepared to embrace any and all impact from a random iteration of other beings who (more or less) possess the same option to focus their energy on creating/destroying. By fusing the vocal ranges on this musical opus from the lovely and delightful embracing operaic voice of Tina to Michael's exerted forced grunts creates a duality that is also common in certain other musical subgenre-categorisations, be it Gothic or "progressive", it always creates the certain suspiciousness to the idealistic and dialectic representation of both destructive/chaotic elements of the masculine and the pious, virtuous feminine characteristics of the devotional. Michaels grunts should represent the majestic raw and primitive strength that once forged the male gender, but fails to do so adequately, resulting in a tragic and comical shady representation of a frail figure in a traditional Greek play. By analyzing one's surroundings with the "gift" which we call rationality or reason, one should recognize the fact that our time, in order to push itself into the direction needed to achieve a zenith, we require the absolute imposing, the ultimately superior rawness that can only be realized through radical creativity. The opposite of this can be simply described as "lame", which is an adequate term to describe the grunts on this album. Maybe this is intentional to complete the dialectic symbiosis between both vocal ranges. The lyrics evidently deal with war-related topics with a subtle hint of romantic influences, which fit well to the overall presentation of the music. The only mystery that I have failed to comprehend is love-stricken poetry, but that should be a focus for anthropologists and psychologists.

With all that being said, Phdonos Deon's "Nach Ewig Gesezten" is a typical example of the "how" and not the "what" being most important to every young musician here. It seems that each and every person in the band is focused to doing his thing right, but without reaching up high to fulfill their full potential, the result being a square wheel rolling strained on a street built out of reversed catenaries, with the relation between the respective dimensions still to be optimized. In a non-robotic way: the EP is satisfying, yet the full creative potential is a process that is felt from within, not the outside and should be harvested adequately.

(Metal-archvies and TMO on 31.01.2010)