DISILLUSION — Ayam (review)

Album · 2022 · Progressive Metal

4/5 · 2022-11-12
lukretion

How on Earth did I miss out on this amazing band for all these years?! Hailing from Leipzig, Germany, Disillusion play a formidable distillate of all my favourite metal genres, from melodic death metal, to avant-garde / progressive metal, to dark gothic/doom metal. And yet their new record Ayam, released on November 4th via Prophecy Productions, is the first I hear from them - and it simply blew me away! The LP is just the fourth in a career that spans nearly 30 years and includes a long hiatus between 2006 and 2019. That may in part explain why the band has flown under my radar for so long, but still I cannot stop kicking myself for being so late to the party!

This album is incredible. It takes the listener on a sonic journey that knows no boundaries, exploring a kaleidoscope of diverse metal styles and influences with terrific aplomb and intelligence, as each twist and turn of this 60-minute beast feels as natural as water. Opening track “Am Abgrund” is a great example of the extraordinary creative drive that runs through the whole LP. This song throws literally everything at the listener during its exhilarating 11 minutes. A ferocious death metal section with blast beats, lacerating growls and – believe it or not – trumpet and flugelhorn, suddenly resolves in an epic clean chorus, whose vocal harmonies remind me of the way clean voices are arranged by Viking metal bands like Borknagar or Enslaved. The song’s first half is a hurricane, constantly swinging between fury and melody in a way that should be jarring and yet it works splendidly. This rollercoaster of a section eventually culminates in a stunning jazzy guitar solo that gives me strong Cynic vibes. A calmer section ensues, with acoustic guitar arpeggios and soft clean vocals painting the sort of suffused, ghostlike atmospheres one may find in the work of Opeth or Riverside. Another splendid chromatic solo leads back to the death metal pyrotechnics of the opening section, bringing the song full circle.

The rest of the album continues in a similar fashion. Each song brings in new shades of darkness, swinging between annihilating aggression (“Tormento”, “Abide the Storm”), and calmer nocturnal meditations built around dreamy vocals, mournful cellos and acoustic guitars (“Driftwood”, “Nine Days”). This injects a strong unpredictability in the proceedings, as one never knows where the next song may venture. This exhilarating sense that “everything goes” is also achieved by largely eschewing formulaic song structures: each new track takes its own course, loosely arranged around verse and chorus, but free to expand and contract according to the music’s needs. The songwriting is equally fluid, embracing an ever-changing set of influences from song to song. Echoes of gothic metal (Moonspell) emerge in “Nine Days”, but the same song later explores the sort of serene post-rockish soundscapes that one can find in Anathema’s output. Meanwhile, “Longhope” combines catchy dark metal vibes à la Katatonia with a Leprous-esque chorus that is at the same time poppy and brutal. Elsewhere, we find traces of Devin Townsend’s across-the-board take on extreme metal (“Tormento”), but also doomy riffs and tempos (“Abide the Storm”), and even hints of 1970s progressive rock (the Floydian solos in “Abide the Storm”).

It’s a lot to take in, but Disillusion pull it off with ease, making each transition feel natural, almost necessary. Andy Schmidt’s distinctive voice plays a big role in ensuring the album flows without solution of continuity. His subdue, melancholy melodies and cleverly-constructed vocal harmonies are the sonic trademark of the LP: like a beacon in the dark, he guides the listener through the album’s dense and dazzling journey. His vocals are the fixed point around which the music ebbs and flows, always returning to those familiar cadences and melodies. This achieves a beautiful equilibrium between exploration and familiarity, which is one of the major strength of this release.

There is another type of balance that Ayam nails perfectly: that between technical playing and emotional delivery. The progressive metal scene today seems characterized by a chasm between bands that play hyper-technical, but emotionally dry music, and bands that instead embrace the road of “cinematic metal”, rich in emotions but often limited in terms of virtuoso playing. Disillusion sit at the exact intersection between these two traditions, like very few other bands do (Opeth, perhaps, although their music does err on the side of technicality at the expense of emotional punch). Ayam brims with exceptional playing. The guitars (played by Schmidt, Ben Haugg and exiting band member Sebastian Hupfer) pull off excellent riffs and solos, but Martin Schulz’s jaw-dropping performance at the drumkit deserves to be mentioned too: he is a powerhouse, deftly switching between brutal bludgeoning and nimble percussions in the most natural way possible. Throughout the album, however, the focus is firmly retained on effective songwriting and emotional delivery: there is no trace of technical showmanship for the mere sake of it. The result is music that lends itself to two modes of listening – cerebral and visceral –, effectively combining the best of both worlds as far as modern prog metal is concerned.

Among all the praise, there is one aspect of Ayam that bothers me a little: the songs’ sequencing. There are two long-form epic tracks on the album, “Am Abgrund” and “Abide the Storm”, both exceeding 11 minutes in length. Both songs are excellent, but placing them so close to one another (at position #1 and #4, respectively) does not work well. The similarities between the two songs become too salient, reducing their impact (for instance, their structure is similar, with a calmer, moody middle-part bookended by more energetic sections). My other, and bigger, complaint concerns the closing track “The Brook”. This song feels unnecessary to me, because the album’s perfect closing moment has already passed, with the beautiful, languid fade-out of its penultimate song “From the Embers”. In my opinion, those should have been Ayam’s last notes. After such a splendid, uplifting come-down, “The Brook” feels almost like a second, redundant album finale, that lack however the emotional punch of “From the Embers”.

However, in the grander scheme of things. these are mere quibbles. Ayam is a terrific accomplishment that, come December, I am sure will end up on many album-of-the-year lists. There is little doubt in my mind that this is one of the best, richest progressive metal albums released in the past decades, and fans of dark, melancholic metal need to check this out pronto!

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]