The Human Twilight Zone

Fourth album for the lamentably underrated Stygma IV – and I hate to use the word underrated, but they are. This was one of the best bands in power metal during the 90s and early 2000s. After their odd prog-laced debut Solum Mente Infirmis they only got more riff-based and traditional from album to album, with this one pretty much being a solid metal jackboot straight to the teeth. Well, metaphorically anyway – I’m pretty sure it hasn’t come out yet in jackboot format.

The band’s formula is pretty much propulsive classic guitar-hero stuff a la Ritchie Blackmore or Tony Iommi – just slick, heavy, hooky riffs that can dive into a doomy section or even some faster speed metal type stuff, with a taste for the epic at the ready at all times. The guitar-work of main man Gunter Maier here is seriously just unparalleled, as he run circles around many of the band’s contemporaries and put out some licks to rival the classic bands. The songwriting is compact and heavy, with shorter songs than their earlier albums had and a focus more on being retro and old-school than on twisting the songwriting format around into loopy epics and bizarre acoustic sections. That would probably be disappointing if the songs here weren’t so good.

Singer Ritchie Krenmaier powers out a great performance on here with a raspy Dio-esque midrange exploding sometimes into a more Russell Allen-esque high wail – though those two influences aren’t that far apart, it does show you where he’s coming from. Opener “Calculation Towers” is good and the hooky groove of “Stygmatized” is even better, but things don’t get going until the next few tracks – which are the best on the album. “The Void” is an old school Sabbath doom riff and one of the catchiest choruses on the album – it’s bare bones songwriting, but oh man does it ever work. “Earth Children” boasts a monster of a riff – seriously it will just own you and your family and even your dog, it’s so fucking good. It loops through some mellower 70s-trippy sections here and there, but those really just serve as a counterpoint for the song to dive back into that amazing riff.

But the real crown jewel here is “Sleep,” a 16-minute epic and the best song the band ever wrote. I am no fan of super-long epic songs – I think most metal bands tend to over-use the format in an attempt to sound ‘deep’ or ‘progressive,’ when really they don’t have enough ideas to sustain a huge song length. Rush and Iron Maiden got it right way back when and that’s that, with only a couple of exceptions. This is one of those exceptions. It’s not really progressive (well except for the flute solo about 9-10 minutes in…), but more of a huge heavy metal maelstrom, with a lot of different sections and parts and emotive vocal bits all strung together by a killer main riff. There’s a real sense of flow to the song as it feels very narrative in structure, with tormented lyrics that take you on a journey through it. I really think any fan of classic metal should track this song down and hear it. And while you’re at it, listen to the rest of this goddamn album.

If the rest of this can’t measure up it’s really no slight against the album to say so – following the previous three tracks and keeping the same quality would have been a Herculean feat. But there are no weak tracks; just some that you like a bit less than others. “Omega” is a cool tune, as is the title track – both have fistfuls more great riffs, vocal lines and attitude. “At the End of My Daze” is a bit of an oddity for the band, as it is a sort of bouncy half-ballad AOR track, but the highly emotionally driven vocal performance elevates it above just some cash-in attempt, and it’s one of my favorites here. “Scars” has some cool guitar riffs and licks that remind me of Queensryche and Crimson Glory at their prime.

Lyrically the guys have penned more of their misery and madness tales, ranting about politics, the end of the world and all sorts of other topics that, while generic, are delivered with an earnest enthusiasm I can’t help but like. Many bands, when they get really big, tend to try for lyrics like this and it comes off as trite and try-hard. It takes young, scrappy and angry bands fighting their way through unfair music business deals and the vapid state of modern popular music to do these lyrics right – which is, I believe, what we had on this album.

I really dig this album, and it’s second to Solum Mente Infirmis… as my favorite Stygma IV album. There’s a real dedication to what metal should be about here – just boundless energy, great nimble, aggressive guitarwork and epic, imaginative songwriting. I love the hunger and passion the guys had here; you just don’t get this with so many of the bands trying at retro 70s and 80s metal nowadays. If you can track down The Human Twilight Zone I recommend you do so, as it is a lost gem, and one of my favorite metal discoveries of recent months.