Disillusion Alea

Alea sees Disillusion return to the style of their famed 2004 opus, Back to Times of Splendor. It's progressive, visceral, atmospheric music done with originality, attention to detail, and to an astounding level of quality.

A fundamental question came up for DISILLUSION only a few months after the release of BACK TO TIMES OF SPLENDOR: What does this band want? Where does it want to go?

At the end of day, all participants knew that the final chords on BTTOS set the seal on the inevitable: All has been said; it has been done. You could improve the sound, write even better riffs, you could sing even more pompously of pain and suffering and pathos; but nothing substantial could be added to the record. Something had come to an end after almost three years; it was finished and released quite successfully under the flag of Metalblade Records in April 2004 – in wide screen and cinemascope. Including the two mini cds from 2001 and 2002, BTTOS marks the peak of a period one could label naive, highly energetic, filigree, a melting pot of styles, or all together; but of course neither will describe the charm of the record.

BTTOS is a powerful trip, an audio film, a maelstrom, whose dramaturgy you cannot elude until the end, where you come to the astonishing conclusion you have to hit Play again – or to turn it off. BTTOS is final and does not require continuation.

It is where many musicians go in circles, that DISILLUSION take the risk and dare a monstrous step in their past. In the late 2004 ideas and decisions form the not-at-all random picture, that today answers to the name GLORIA: square, uneven, maladjusted, without foam, but surely bearing the justified imprint of its release: 2006.

GLORIA is DISILLUSION’s answer to a metal scene running the risk of ultimately selling out at its own carnival stand, going down with drums and trumpets, and the rompers for the offspring…

In 2005 when the band began to write for GLORIA they teamed up with Hirsch and Tippelt from film-m. Both parties saw great chances in the multimedia connection and decided to take them.

GLORIA turned out to be a quantum leap for the band and people behind it. Partly surprised about the originality of the spontaneous outcomes, ‘David Lynch on Metal’ became the maxim of the following months. The DISILLUSION five-piece did hold up till the very end 18 months later, to then fall apart in discord and clash. Also drummer Jens Maluschka quitted. He was part of the band since 2000. Bitter that was, but as already indicated the alternatives would have been self-pleasing and lame.

And that is exactly what DISILLUSION never stood for: stagnation. The band around Schmidt is energy, a constant rumbling, a fire to try out things and to bring them to an end – beginnings, endings, roads, tumbling, to experiment and challenge the impossible.

Is GLORIA the end?

Was BTTOS the end?!

Answer: DISILLUSION are writing again.