Mekong Delta Discography. Part 2 (1992-2012)

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Mekong Delta Discography. Part 2 (1992-2012)

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A riddle wrapped in an enigma dressed up in leather and studs, Germany's Mekong Delta perplexed the heavy metal world both by playing an unconventional brand of progressive thrash and by keeping the identities of the bandmembers secret for the first five years of a career starting in 1987. The reality was far more mundane than the rumors, as it turned out, since it was later revealed that the group had originally been masterminded by Aaarrg Records owner Ralph Hubert, who wished to pair up members of existing bands like Rage and Living Death without incurring the wrath of the labels they were signed to. Hubert didn't even intend to participate in the whole charade at first, but took on the role of bass player and the pseudonym of Bjorn Eklund when Rage's Peavy Wagner bowed out early on, then completed the initial Mekong Delta lineup with vocalist Kell (real name Wolfgang Borgmann), guitarists Rolf Stein and Vincent St. John (actually Living Death members Frank Fricke and Reiner Kelch), and drummer Gordon Perkins (in reality future journeyman Jorg Michael, then also a member of Rage).

This was the quintet responsible for 1987's conceptually unified Mekong Delta debut, which not surprisingly delved into the Vietnam War, as well as 1988's The Gnome EP and H.P. Lovecraft-inspired The Music of Erich Zann LP – all of which drew much critical acclaim and saw the band sometimes described as a Teutonic response to Canadian prog-thrashers Voivod. Membership changes began to take place behind the scenes with Uwe Baltrusch's replacement of Kelch for 1989's The Principle of Doubt album (which was loosely based on Stephen R. Donaldson's dark fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever), and by the release of 1990's Dances of Death, Fricke too was gone, Doug Lee had replaced Borgmann, and all of the fake names had finally been dropped, save for Jorg Michael's, since he remained under contract elsewhere. Still, although their secrets had largely been exposed, Mekong Delta's music continued to surprise and astound, thanks to the steady infusion of classical music elements into their ever-adventurous prog-thrash.

Though these elements had already featured to some degree on all of Mekong Delta's prior releases, it was 1991's Live at an Exhibition in-concert document that first hinted at a particularly strong fixation on the works of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, which the band later explored in full with an orchestra-backed recording of Pictures at an Exhibition in 1997. In between, drummer Peter Haas had joined the group for albums like 1992's Kaleidoscope and 1994's Visions Fugitives, but after the release of the aforementioned orchestral project, Mekong Delta went into an extended hibernation, as sporadic rumors swirled concerning the supposed exile and/or death of prime mover Ralph Hubert. In keeping with the band's past history, however, all of this speculation proved to be just that and, come 2007, Hubert convened a brand-new Mekong Delta featuring singer Leszek Szpigiel, guitarist Peter Lake, and drummer Uli Kusch for new album Lurking Fear, which by all accounts proved as reliably quirky and unpredictable as anything that fans might have expected from this mysterious group.

by Eduardo Rivadavia

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virtuosity and musical ambition of progressive metal and combining it with the rawness, brutality, and speed of thrash metal. I always wondered how it would sound, and I ended up finding a few bands where this fascinated me greatly. Most of these bands however, come from the United States (like Watchtower). The only one that I knew that came from outside of the United States was Coroner.

Then, I heard of a little known mystery band from Germany run by a classically trained bassist named Ralf Hubert called Mekong Delta.

What separates Mekong Delta from an American band like Watchtower is where they get their influences from, and how this is put into the music. Watchtower used primarily the loose, improvisational, yet highly complex nature of jazz music as their influence when it came to making their progressive thrash metal. On the other side of the scale, Mekong Delta used the heavily theorized and tight knit nature of classically composed music for orchestras for there kind of music. While still being as progressive and skilled as bands to come from the United States who played their kind of music, Mekong Delta proves to be a bit more catchy and easier to head bang to considering their progressive nature. This, in my opinion makes Mekong Delta a really good band.

For people who wish to get into Mekong Delta, the best place to do it is here, on Kaleidoscope. The reason is that this is when Mekong Delta is for the most part at its best for the most part. The band is top notch, the compositional skill is great, and the music is catchy. Kaleidoscope provides an interesting listening experience for fans who really want to hear the boundaries of making music complex and making music catchy to the very brink (something Watchtower, as good as they were, could never achieve). This is the reason why most do not want to listen to progressive metal, because you cannot headbang or mosh to it most of the time. But on Kaleidoscope (as on most other Mekong Delta releases), you can do that. So lets get into why the music here is great.

A band needs musicians, and Mekong Delta has quite the cadre of musicians playing here. First off is vocalist Doug Lee, who replaced original vocalist Wolfgang on the album Dances Of Death And Other Living Shadows. Compared to his German predecessor, the American born Doug Lee is honestly a better singer for Mekong Delta. The ambient, "techno thrash" metal that the band plays is more suited for Doug, who's vocals are better fit for all the guitar harmonies and other parts that are with the band. He primarily sings in these odd sort of springy vocal patterns, as in his voice will get higher and louder as he sings, then descend as he goes to sing more or stops. Some could find this annoying, but compared to Wolfgang Borgemann, Doug proves that his voice is just more articulate then Wolfgang's (who could not achieve any high notes at all). The only problem I have with his voice is that he can't seem to really do low vocals very well. But then again, the band accommodates this so well that their music (despite being more melodic) is still in the same vein with what any band in their field would craft. Besides, he is not as high in pitch as Allen "grabbing my balls" Techio, so give him a break.

Just like on Kaleidoscope's predecessor Dances Of Death, we find Uwe Baltrusch alone on guitar once again. This is a very good thing. Living Death guitarists Frank Fricke and Reiner Kalt simply were not as good at playing guitar as Uwe Baltrusch is. While not as good as any of his American progressive thrash counterparts (or Tommy Veterelli of Coroner or future Mekong Delta guitarist Peter Lake for that matter), Baltrusch proves that he can play the guitar. His main style consists of tapping and high speed tremolo picking in a heavily theorized and choppy manner with loads of melodic undertones and whammy bar use. Besides the melodic use, Baltrusch is really no different then any of his other German thrash metal guitarists who played in other thrash metal bands that were more brutal then Mekong Delta (like Frank Blackfire of Sodom and Kreator). However, how well he adapts to the progressive changes and the harmonies he makes are just amazing here. While his lead parts are a tad reserved compared to previous Mekong Delta efforts with him playing, Uwe is still a good fit the band.

On the bass, main composer Ralf Hubert is just plain awesome. Hubert has always been a great bass player for a guy who just all the sudden sort of picked up the instrument after Peavey Wagner left the band (although I think it is feasible to think that he probably had experience with it before hand). Though Hubert plays with a pick, the lines he plays are so incredibly impressive they will give anyone who plays finger style a run for their money. He even does some radical bass solos (check Sphere Eclipse for this), and applies cool effects and odd tunings to make use of in other tracks for ambient work and fills (check Heartbeat for this). The lyrics that are used here that are written by him are just plain odd and metaphorical. They range from themes such as religion infiltrating the government (Innocent), metaphysics mixed with racism and greed (Sphere Eclipse), industrial over development and how it is encouraged (Heartbeat), schizophrenia (Shadow Walker), and scientific alteration of humanity (About Science). This is really awesome compared to most American thrash metal bands or German thrash metal bands who could not show what they wanted to get across in their lyrics and had to tell them (as a writer I care about this). His highly skilled and deeply emotional nylon acoustic finger work is also amazing on the track Dreaming is also amazing, as it provides the listener with a good relax from the previous tracks and a look at the amazing compositional genius that is Ralf Hubert.

Peter Haas proves once again that he is a good choice for the band, even if I don't really like him. While I cannot deny Haas is a talented drummer and is very good for the progressive nature of the band, but I just like drummer Jorg Michael a bit more. Haas's double bass speed and double bass technique is not as good as Jorg's, but he is capable of doing dual tempos really nicely. Another good choice for the band.

Hubert's production on the album is one thing that you either love or hate. I love the fact that all the instruments (vocals included) can be heard. You do not normally get this a lot with most metal bands these days, so this is a good thing. The downsides to this are somethings the progressive nature makes everything sort of seem swirled together and sloppy, but then again Hubert was aiming for the kind of production used on a live classical recording, where every instrument can be heard with ease as well. Another problem is that to accommodate the bass being heard so well, everything else kind of seems quieter (especially the drums). Do not take the production here for granted, because you probably will not hear something like it ever again.

Song wise, all of them have thrash metal running through them. Sometimes the thrash is more prevalent on some tracks then others. Good examples for this are the opening track Innocent (which is probably the heaviest song on the album), and closer About Science. The rest of the tracks seem to be a bit more progressive metal and more ambient driven then thrash metal (something fans of more brutal and heavy thrash metal will not enjoy). However, that does not stop some of these songs from being truly brilliant. The cover of Genesis's Dance On A Volcano (OMG thrash metal bands covering Genesis, that makes them sellouts!) is done to a stellar effect. All of the songs have their moments to make them really really catchy sounding. Such as the catchy vocal patterns in Heartbeat, the volleying of words and perspective changes on Shadow Walker, and Doug's ambient style more clean vocals on Sphere Eclipse that follow Ralf's bass are just amazing. Probably my favorite song on here is Shadow Walker, because it shows Hubert and the rest of the band's musical prowess at it's best, along with providing the best balance between thrash metal and progressive metal.

Really the only downside to Mekong Delta is the music is so out there and ambitious to appeal to a really broad range of people. Fans of more brutal bands will not exactly like it, and even first time listeners will have to listen to the album a few times through to get used to it, but by this point they may not like it anymore. Still, if you want to hear something odd and have the ears (and patience) to listen and enjoy this kind of music, Mekong Delta's Kaleidescope is for you.

by BarkievonSchnauser

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I had a feeling that something like was bound to happen, so it's not at all a surprise that all of Mekong Delta's classical cover tracks from prior albums were compiled and released on their own to flit about the attention spans of the handful of people who might actually be sucker enough to fall for this. Here's the quandary: fans of a highly progressive thrash band like this were bound to be few and far between, bless their tight little souls. Those parties interested were already likely to own the band's full-length albums, where most of these covers (and the few originals) had already appeared in their original contexts. So why the fuck would they require a re-release? This band was not exactly Trans-Siberian Orchestra, packing arenas with well known Christmas standards.

It's kind of like Fight Club, in which Tyler Durden comes up with the plan to sell suctioned fat back to rich women as bars of soap. Well, I was not about to fall for it. About the only positive here is that if you were missing the Toccata single from 1989, that track is included, and the 2nd version of "Interludium". You get the Mussorgsky pieces "The Gnome" (released numerous times before this collection), "The Hut of Baba Yaga" (s/t debut) and "Night on a Bare Mountain" (Dances of Death). From The Principle of Doubt, you got the cover of the brief guitar classic "El Colibri", heavily pregnant with Ralph Hubert's bass, and also the Twilight Zone theme. Also included is the "Interludium" (The Music of Erich Zann), and that's all she wrote. The "Sabre Dance" from Kaleidoscope was excluded since the album was fairly recent, and I'm surprised they didn't include their Black Sabbath medley.

In short, it's a collection of things that most attentive fans of Mekong Delta already owned, all in one place for…convenience? The band's renditions of these classics are not unworthy, mind you, they're all quite spastic and lovingly crafted, if never enough impetus to choose them over the original incarnations. But I don't find that having them all cramped together on one disc in any way heightens the experience over hearing their novelty amidst the band's original thrash tracks. I'll reiterate that there's a slight degree of value for those who were missing The Gnome EP or Toccata single, but otherwise stay far away, or at least pick up the 2006 reissue which includes six more tracks (including the originally missing "Sabre Dance").

by autothrall

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Prior to the release of 'Visions Fugitives', Mekong Delta had been no stranger to classical music. Their style of thrashy progressive metal exuded the influence of many a composer, particularly those with a darker sound to their orchestral observations. When it came to actually performing classical music however, the band up to this point had more or less limited themselves to using neoclassical tricks within their metal context, even doing a cover or two. With that in mind, 'Visions Fugitives' and its centerpiece 'Suite For Group And Orchestra' was quite a long time in the making. Although some may go to criticize the band for never going as far as to use a real-life orchestra in its recording, few albums within the 'thrash metal' umbrella have engaged me so much. Throw in a few pieces of cerebral prog metal to flesh things out, and you have a piece of work that would make the old giants of progressive rock proud.

Although 'Suite For Group And Orchestra' is planted right in the middle of the album, there is still a clear division here between the ornate classical 'epic', and the more traditional songs. Like Rush's '2112', or Fates Warning's 'No Exit', Mekong Delta follow prog metal canon by giving listeners a clear cut of both gears, although every track on 'Visions Fugitives' falls firmly within progressive metal territory. As they have in the past, Mekong Delta shares the neighborhood with Voivod and Watchtower, in that their brand of thrash favours the cerebral over the speedy riffage of many of their contemporaries. Besides band founder Ralph Hubert, Mekong Delta has been a revolving door of musicians since their inception, and 'Visions Fugitives' is no exception. Mark Kaye brings a guitar performance to the band that fits their mission statement like a glove, fusing technicality with the sort of frantic atmosphere Mekong Delta had been capitalizing on with prior records. As far as Mekong Delta's metal edge is concerned, Douglas Lee's vocals may be the most controversial aspect of the sound. Although the complex vocalizations at the end of 'Them' declare that he is definitely has the ear for singing, his vocals have a tone to them that would fit much more comfortably in prog rock rather than thrash. Fortunately, Mekong Delta's metal side is never far ahead of the 'prog', and his performance here works just as well for the context as Wolfgang Borgmann's did on their debut.

The classical aspect of 'Visions Fugitives' is without a doubt the most important part of the album. Though the four progressive metal songs are too worthy of being deemed masterful in their composition, 'Suite For Group And Orchestra' takes up a damned half of the record, and a listener's appreciation of the record will brink largely on their openness to heavy metal being crossbred with classical music so openly. Although classical music has been going steady with metal since the days of Yngwie Malmsteen and even long before, it rarely gets to the point where the two sounds are mixed to the extent where neither is the dominant force. This is the case with 'Suite For Group And Orchestra', an elaborately composed twenty minute piece worthy of the highest commendation. Here, Mekong Delta mimic the atmosphere of Romantic-era classical music rather than the erudite complexity of composers before, the result being a piece with plenty of epic melody and variety, not to mention a fair deal of room for the band to incorporate their rock instruments into the fray. The soothing acoustic 'Introduction' leads into an eerie 'Preludium', complete with low horns and eerie bells to make it sound like something out of the haunted mansion in Super Mario Brothers. 'Dance' and 'Fugue' bring the piece into less frightening and more proggy, technical realms, often letting the band play powerfully without getting in the way of the orchestration. As far as the composition itself goes, it's remarkable to hear how many places both emotionally and sonically Mekong Delta can take a listener within a twenty minute period.

In terms of flaws, the use of a computerized, or 'fake' orchestra may not hurt the compositions or music, but there is always the feeling throughout listening to 'Visions Fugitives' that things could be even more impressive, had the band had the resources to make a full orchestral rendition of their music a reality. A less-than-excellent production quality carries over to the prog metal songs as well, with the vocals sounding somewhat muffled and less mixed than they rightfully should have been. None of these studio issues are ever enough to take away from the excellence of the band's 'vision' however; it might even be said that the muffled sound and artificial instruments even add to the atmosphere. Mekong Delta have long been one of the most engaging acts to come out of German thrash metal, and 'Visions Fugitives' sees them finally realize their dream of bringing classical music to the thrash realm. Even still, it feels as if this project left open room for improvement, but if Mekong Delta never tops the majesty they have created here, I won't be one to complain.

by ConorFynes

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Pictures at an Exhibition is the last Mekong Delta studio full-length of the 90s, after which the band would take a ten year sabbatical, the members exploring other opportunities. Its an homage to Modest Mussorgsky's famous piano suite of the same name, and thus an instrumental album. Doug Lee's tenure ended with Visions Fugitives; though he was still in the lineup at this time, he would not return in the following century. This also represents a culmination in the German band's love for this particular composer, having already covered some of the constituent movements ("The Gnome", "The Hug of Baba Yaga") and another well known Mussorgsky piece, "Night on the Bare Mountain", on prior recordings.

This is not the first such work: Emerson, Lake and Palmer covered the suite with a live album in 1971, and there's also a Japanese proto-electro rendition from the 70s which is quite cool, but I'll give Mekong Delta some credit, because this is perhaps my favorite. Their previous album, Visions Fugitives, featured an original symphonic arrangement of some length (alongside several shorter tracks), so I would have thought the next step to be an entire album of their own compositions, but ultimately I'm quite satisfied with this. The band have included two versions of each track, one with the band performing alone, the other with both band and orchestra, for a total of 32 and 70+ minutes of listening. I'm a bit divided on which I like more…the longer pieces do tend to sound more interesting with just Mekong performing them, but the interludes certainly benefit from the symphony. The orchestral versions certainly seem more enthusiastic, and yet, the core band elements are somewhat smothered in there.

At any rate, this was a fairly risky and ambitious project. Mussorgsky is a fantastic composer, a personal favorite, but I feel like Pictures at an Exhibition is yet another of those classical pieces that few mainstream folks can actually cite by name. Sure, they'll recognize the movements from a number of films, TV commercials or their educational years, but they're unlikely to much care for the nuance of the work being performed by a metal band. Yet, the Germans sound amazing as they graze through the mourning of "Il Vecchio Castello", Hubert's quirky bass-driven "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks", the frolicking "Limoges: Le Marche (La Grande Nouvelle)" or the famed "Heroic Gate (In the Old Capital of Kiev)". The material is obviously far below the ability level of the Mekong Delta players, but they do it justice, and some of the more flighty pieces do capture the band's schizoid, progressive essence naturally.

Pictures at an Exhibition is pretty good for what it is, the band's seeming finale until the vicious reawakening in 2007's Lurking Fear. If you're interested in metallic reworks of classical music, then it possibly belongs on your shelf alongside other such projects like the sappy Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Sort of how I crave the Minibosses' covers of Metroid and other Nintendo classic themes, I find myself breaking this album out when I'm feeling studious. Granted, it's not quite so worthwhile as breaking out an earlier composer's rendition of the Maurice Ravel arrangement, but then you'd be lacking the thrashing breaks and Ralph Hubert would be lacking your money. I'd also point out that it's far stronger to listen through "The Gnome" or "Baba Yaga" in this context, than independently among the band's original songs. Also: this cover art is the best I've seen from the band.

by autothrall

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It has not proven uncommon for the lesser known Germanic thrash patrols of the 80s to emerge renewed in the 21st century, but of all of them, Mekong Delta has made the boldest showing. Lurking Fear is a superb album through and through, and surprisingly their most aggressive and best produced. That Ralph Hubert has pulled this off after over a decade of absence, with an entirely new lineup, is akin to a miracle, but perhaps we should not be surprised that a composer of this level was capable of such an immaculate return to prominence. The boys he's brought on board for this record are no slouches themselves: veteran skinbasher Uli Kusch of Helloween, Masterplan, Gamma Ray and numerous others, including Mekong Delta in the late 80s; prog thrash and death guitar wizard Peter Lake of Theory in Practice; and last, but certainly not least, Leszek Szpigiel, the phenomenal shrieker who had done time in Wolf Spider, Scanner and Crows.

What could have stopped such a rogues' gallery from delivering the schizophrenic manhandling the Mekong Delta worshiper had so long craved? Answer: absolutely nothing. Lurking Fear is a mesmerizing outburst of intelligent, punishing tech thrash, the best album since 1989's opus The Principle of Doubt. Actually, fuck it. I'm going one further. This is the best album the band has ever recorded, so it's sort of a shame that this lineup could only be retained for just the one. It drags you into the same labyrinth of clinical, bewildering emotions that the band offered in their heyday, but with far higher values in production and an even stronger bond of songwriting than they had brought to bear on The Music of Erich Zahn or the s/t debut. Hubert has not entirely abandon the classical inclinations here, there are some orchestra instrumental covers like "Allegro" found scattered through the vocal tracks, but it's all so much more frenzied and cohesive. The album is a stunner from front to back, and if I've any complaint is that it's so fresh from the asylum that it's likely to induce paranoia. The title is truth in advertising.

Szpigiel is the perfect vehicle to pilot this whirlwind of riffing and ideas, and I always thought he might be, superior to both Wolfgang Borgmann and Doug Lee. He layers a number of higher pitched tones into some of the passages to create a hallucinogenic menace, but I also enjoy how they'll offset this with simple, percussive gang shouts (i.e. "Rules of Corruption"). The guitars are fucking insanity, just as cyclical, structured and hypnotic a beating as you'd find on any of the Theory in Practice full-lengths, and Kusch has given himself his best workout in many years. Through it all, you can hear Hubert's impeccable, low-end haunting presence and he sits back and grins at the genius he has assembled in one place. There are no stinkers on this entire album, though I heavily favor the vortexes of "Society in Dissolution", "Rules of Corruption" and "Immortal Hate (Accepting Prayers of Supremacy)", which frankly throttled my mind into the next dimension. Then again, who can resist "Moderato", in which the band incorporates familiar theatrical themes from Predator, the 'Imperial March', and others into frenetic metal symphony.

Yes, despite the band's intellect thrashing stimuli they somehow find the time to remember the 'fun' that steadied hands can have with the genre, and ultimately it all contributes to such a total package that just about every sorely lacking retro thrash outfit trying to peddle stolen dreams can go suckle their thumbs and weep. If only more artists were writing albums of this caliber, we could probably send civilization to the stars a few centuries ahead of the scheduled date, which is at this point looking like never.

by autothrall

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After a decade of silence, Mekong Delta returned in 2007 with their highly recommended comeback album Lurking Fear, and alongside the recent streak of Paradox records, that made for quite an exciting kick to the German technical thrash pacemaker, not only sounding like the band hadn't skipped a beat, but also trumping a number of their 90s efforts. Well, apparently this was not a one time thing, as the band have forged on yet again to create another studio effort, Wanderer on the Edge of Time, and though it's not quite so exciting as its predecessor, this new effort proves there is still life left in the genre, or rather, creative, and puts so many of the young run and gunning 80s worshipers to tremendous shame.

Lurking Fear was a pretty tight knit, manic thrash album which celebrated the wealth of idea distributed near the end of the 80s by the more artistic and technically inclined bands of that genre. To an extent, this continues along that path, with acrobatic guitar work and amazing bass lines that absorb you into this band's continuum of classical music, jazz and metal. Similar to previous Mekong Delta albums Pictures at an Exhibition (1997) and Dances of Death (1990), several of the thrash tracks are separated by classical or experimental segue pieces, all laid out like some forsaken symphony. This is a technique which has often proved divisive on albums like Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle Earth or Pestilence's Testimony of the Ancients, as some listeners are unwilling to grasp the underlying assumptions which mark each transition. Like those albums, I feel that they are largely successful here, and provide a pretty broad experience which is more than simply a head spinning exercise in aggression.

Of these, I enjoyed the intro "Concert Guitar", a subtle and fluid, classical guitar piece which meanders through several veils of mystery. "Interlude 4 - Group" and "Finale" are both impressive pieces of clinical, dexterous thrash with an intense junction of drumming, bass and strings, no mean feat when you consider that almost all the members except bassist Ralph Hubert have only been in the band since 2008…though drummer Alex Landenburg has played in At Vance, Axxis, and Annihilator previously. Speaking of newcomers, the vocal reins here have been assumed by Martin LeMar (of German progressive metal act Tomorrow's Eve), and while he's got a less vibrant and 'insane' tone than Leszek Spiegel, and a safer approach more likely to mirror someone like James LaBrie of Dream Theater, he is still spot on for much of this album.

Though a good portion of the record's 50 minutes and 15 tracks is devoted to such intros and interludes (themselves ranging from thrash to classical), the true meat of the matter are the vocal pieces, and several of these are remarkable. "A Certain Fool (Le Fou)/Movement 1" is a weighted, prog rock effort which slowly gathers in power through swelling, theatrical orchestration and a poignant but reined in performance from LeMar. "The 5th Element (Le Bateleur)/Movement 2" continues to increase the intensity, almost like a bridge from Movement 1 into the stuttering insanity of "The Apocalypt - World in Shards/Movement 3", which is one of the most climactic motions on this record, sure to sate the fan of progressive thrash metal from the late 80s/90s such as Watchtower, Deathrow, Psychotic Waltz, Fates Warning, Paradox, End Amen, and of course….Mekong Delta themselves in their earlier incarnations.

Other highlights include the rising mystique of "King with Broken Crown/Movement 4" and the serpentine, shifting riff-banks of "Mistaken Truth/Movement 7". "Intermezzo/Movement 5", the longest instrumental piece on the album should certainly dazzle the un-initiated among younger fans, who probably think this style was created by Vektor in the past 2-3 years. The one centerpiece of the album I did not find myself absorbed within would be "Affection (L'Amoreaux)/Movement 6", which is a softy, developing ballad with backing vocal harmonies and far too many 'good vibrations' for this listener. Otherwise, I felt myself diving right in!

Ultimately, Wanderer on the Edge of Time is not such a frenetic wake-up call as Lurking Fear was, but my attention rarely waned as I was listening through its contents. Nothing really drags, the musicianship is top notch, and the material accessible enough that it might reach far beyond the cult tech-thrash niche and found a fan base among the more common progressive metal fans. Hubert has kept this entity alive and fresh with ideas, as well as a cadre of younger musicians who somehow manage to keep Mekong Delta's vision alive without descending into the mundane practices of so many of today's younger thrash metal upstarts. If you're a fan of any of this band's previous works, or of any of the bands I've name dropped above, then I sincerely doubt you will be met with disappointment.

by autothrall

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By this point, a number of the better known German thrash acts have released compilations of re-recorded classics, for better or worse. Perhaps the most effective of these has been Destruction's brazen Thrash Anthems collection, with which they modernized an array of favorites into the context of current production standards, but numerous others like Tankard have been less successful. Here in 2012, Steamhammer Records will be releasing two more of these efforts, from mainstays Holy Moses and progressive thrash heroes Mekong Delta, the latter of which has been on a role with their new lineup and recent albums. As usual, I approach this sort of release with some trepidation. While glossier, louder and more accessible, I feel that the re-recordings can tend to rob some sense of perspective from the newer audience who haven't experienced them in their original format, and there's often a sense of 'rubbing out the past', even if the band are just out for a little fun…

But just as often, bands will look back on their past works as flawed and have a genuine desire to see them rehashed in a more digestible format. It's difficult to tell with Intersections, because while these are being executed through an almost entirely new lineup than the early versions (aside from bassist Ralf Hubert), they really don't take a lot of liberties with the material. For instance, vocalist Martin LeMar, while remaining distinct from the band's prior screamers, seeks to honor their craftsmanship closely enough that his timbre doesn't quite distinguish itself. If anything, he's got marginally less of the sporadic character and insanity that his predecessors once asserted over this music. The guitars sound a lot richer due to the advantages of modern studio polish, and the rhythm section truly shines through with some resilient, powerful tones coming out of Hubert's low end, but even though the album might seem a 'friendlier' way to bait a younger audience into their sound, I must admit that in nearly every case, I prefer their older incarnations.

That said, this isn't a bad selection, and if it drags a lot of new fans onto Mekong's radar of influence, then who am I to complain? Gods know, this band fucking deserves some attention over the hordes of also-rans and wannabes that seem to dominate the sub-genre's scene in recent years. The material chosen here spans their 1987-1994 era, the first six full-lengths, which is honestly surprising. I would have thought they'd stick to the first two or three, and then leave the door open for another volume, but then again they could always just mix and match as many of these collections as they desire from the entire backlog. Kaleidoscope (1992) seems the most favored with "Heartbeat", "Sphere Eclipse" and "Innocent?", while most of the others only have one or two proxies. Internally, the balanced mix of the instruments flows very well across the 10 tracks, equalized to the point that they almost feel as if they always belonged together.

Standouts would be "Heartbeat", "The Cure" and "Shades of Doom", the latter for the great and angry counter-vocals, but I fail to see how anyone new to the group would find the entire playlist less than enticing, even if some of my favorite songs in their discography have been omitted (especially from Principle of Doubt and The Music of Erich Zann). Ultimately, the fresh coat of paint and polish will hold some appeal for prog metallers and cerebral thrashers who have very little familiarity with Mekong Delta or the other tech German thrash of the 80s. If you've picked up Lurking Fear and Wanderer on the Edge of Time and feel no compulsion to do the legwork or dirty work in tracking down all the older CDs, tapes or vinyl, then have at it. I can't see myself desiring to experience this over the constituent original albums, but for what it's worth they've done an acceptable, competent job. A fresh coat of paint, but I wouldn't say that the songs sound all that 'fresh', beyond the tones of the bass, the choppier guitars and the muscular drumming. A newer, unreleased track or two would have rounded it out better.

by autothrall