Lost in Time: Disillusion – Back to Times of Splendor

Style: Progressive/Melodic Death Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Ne Obliviscaris, Serj Tankian, Insomnium
Review by: Zach
Country: Germany
Release date: 6 April, 2004

Zach’s note: This is our Head Chairman of Prog, Sam’s and one of Sebastian’s favorite albums of all time, and I wanted to thank them for letting me have the opportunity to write about it. Thanks to both of you! 

I don’t think people on the outside realize quite how unfathomably huge metal as a genre is. I guess it’s like any other genre, but it seems like there are hundreds of new bands that get formed daily, and with the advent of the bedroom musician, anyone can be a full band as long as they’ve got a computer and some dough to spare. Unfortunately, as a result, so many bands slip through the cracks on a daily basis. So, it’s become a bit of a game where occasionally I’ll swing my machete through the vines of Bandcamp or RYM in an attempt to find something I’ve never heard before. And you know me by now, you know what I’ll be searching for.

“Bands like Opeth”, comes up in my search history more than I care to admit. Invariably, I get the same ten bands that I already know and love, and a bunch of clones who sound nowhere near as good. Among those who I’d heard before, Xanthochroid always stood out to me because they remind me of Opeth and don’t sound a thing like them. They’ve got songs that are epic in scope, a fantastic vocalist, and enough theatrics to make a Broadway performer blush. But because ‘ol Xantho seems to be all but defunct now, I need something to fill that hole they left.

Let’s go back to high school, shall we? Back to Times when I was an angsty little bugger. I mean, I still am, but I used to be as well. Every bit of angry prog was my absolute jam. None of that calm stuff! Give me Dillinger, Strapping Young Lad, The Human Abstract, and a song that Spotify randomly recommended me called ‘Alone I Stand in Fires’ from an “EP” called Back to Times of Splendor, an album that slipped through the cracks of every metalhead’s radar. Let me say that this is, in fact, a full hour-long album with just six songs, and I heard none of them until years after I discovered the aforementioned song. But the third song on this album was the medicine little angsty Zach needed to get through the school day.

Now, I had no idea that each song on this album was conjoined and sectioned off into chapters of the album’s concept, and just how much of that third song rode on hearing the prior two. There’s all the anger of what I wanted in a band back in high school, and all the grace and beauty of the music I listen to now. Enough dramatics in the vocals to set my little heart aflutter, and enough riffs to keep me listening. Even the fourteen-minute title track and seventeen-minute closer have enough riffs and sections to never keep me bored, and end with some of the best riffs I’ve ever heard.

The vocals for me are what sets this apart from probably any other melodeath album in existence, though. They are constantly compared to Serj Tankian, but I hear a little of the late Warrel Dane in there too. Not only are they unique, Andy Schmidt goes above and beyond by showing so much power and emotion in these vocals. Whether he’s crooning to see his lover again in ‘…And the Mirror Cracked’ or at his most pissed-off in ‘Back to Times of Splendor’, every line is memorable and poetic.

Disillusion knows how to pace an album, too. Despite a nearly 9-minute opener, there’s a much more simplistic, verse-chorus-verse song that follows, and it hits just as hard. Instead of placing two epics back-to-back, they put the slower, more triumphant sounding ‘A Day by the Lake’ between the two. It serves as an amazing song on its own, but it probably has the best segue into a final track I think I’ve ever seen. “But still I am hoping that fall would never come”.

“But it came.” Right into the first bit of acoustic guitars that kick off the final song. Word to the wise, if you’re going to make a 17-minute finale song, make it this good. The fantastic build in the opening, the insane riffs that follow for the next 10 minutes straight. And just when you think the song is over, then starts a nice calm atmospheric section. An acoustic guitar builds in one ear to a crescendo, and then in comes one of the most amazing riffs I’ve ever heard. But it’s still not over yet, because Disillusion has one final section that closes out the album in such an epic fashion that I’d say it’s up there with ‘Blackwater Park’ and ‘White Walls’. I’m not even mad that it’s a fade out ending, it feels oddly fitting for the album.

Even with all this, there’s something about this album that I can’t place. It has a clear melodeath-y style, but I can’t place the riffing anywhere close to anything released around the same time. It’s head and shoulders above practically any mid-2000s melodeath album, and probably any melodeath released today too. There’s something special here that I don’t think we’ll see again in metal for a long time. It’s Opethian, but not overtly. They have what most ‘pethworship bands lack, that incredible atmosphere. It practically drips from every note, to the point where I can envision what’s going on with the songs in my head, even when I didn’t know the lyrics.

It makes me happy to see this album becoming less and less obscure as the years go on. It deserves to be held in the same regard as the classics of the prog-death genre, and yet, it never was upon release. It’s one of those albums that came out around the same time as 500 other melodeath releases, and didn’t get its dues when first released. Disillusion has a new one coming out November 4th, so now would be a perfect time to go Back to this absolute masterpiece. 

Recommended tracks: Listen to the whole thing, you won’t regret it.
You may also like: Wilderun, Hands of Despair, The Reticent

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Prophecy Productions – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Disillusion is:
– Andy “Vurtox” Schmidt (Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, lyrics, songwriting)
– Jens Maluschka (Drums)
– Rajk Barthel (Guitars)