Neues von ELEND und ANTIMATTER

ANTIMATTER: Album of the month and prelistening for "Leaving Eden" available

"Leaving Eden" has been voted album of the month in German Zillo and Italian Metal Shock magazine. A pre-listening of the album, which will be released on April 16th 2007 as limited digipack CD is possible here:
http://www.prophecyproductions.de/streams/Antimatter-Leaving_Eden.m3u

Unconstrained and with tremendous force - that's a good way to characterize Mick Moss' performance on ANTIMATTER's fourth album, "Leaving Eden". The Englishman has undoubtedly found a way to gather his own power after his composing partner of many years, Duncan Patterson, has left the band - and this power has flown into a kind of music that, lo and behold, has quite a rocking edge at times.
"I wanted to create power and wide spaces in the studio," Mick says. He was envisioning a "dark and laid-back rock album", combining the hardest with the most light-hearted songs from ANTIMATTER's history. It seems fitting, then, that Mick invited a more than competent session musician, Anathema's guitarist Danny Cavanagh, into the studio for the dynamic recordings. The sensitive riffs and melodies do open vast spaces for Mick's vocals - sounding self-confident and melancholic at the same time - and his personal lyrics with their introspective focus. "The album stands on its own two feet," Mick acknowledges the changes in sound, which he however doesn't think are that huge: "There are so many familiar elements; there's one song with a violin lead like on 'Planetary Confinement', there are atmospheric parts, but now there are also the rockier tracks." To the listeners, all of the above means that once again they are invited to sit back and join ANTIMATTER on their journey - a lively one at first, then growing ever more pensive to finally end in contemplation.
Like in that line in the album's last song, "Fighting For A Lost Cause": "Some things never change" - this is also true of ANTIMATTER's haunting atmospheres...

ANTIMATTER: Album des Monats und Prelistening von "Leaving Eden"

At http://www.prophecyproductions.de/streams/elend-stasis.m3u a pre-listening of "A World In Their Screams" (to be released 23.4.2007) , which already by now is praised as the best ELEND album ever, is possible. Top ratings like 10/10 points in Orkus (D) and 15/15 points in Legacy (D) underpin this estimation.

Ever since their inception, ELEND have inhabited an exceptional musical place. Instrumentally lodged somewhere between Classical orchestral music and serious avant-garde music of the 20^th century and at the same time filled with the dense atmosphere and accessibility of a band like Dead Can Dance and the violence of extreme metal, this French-Austrian ensemble have been forging an individual synthesis from the techniques of serious music and the catchiness and straightforwardness of popular forms of music.
"A World In Their Screams" is the third part of the "Winds" cycle that has been begun in 2003 with "Winds Devouring Men" and was continued in the following year with "Sunwar The Dead." More than 30 musicians and singers have contributed to the massive soundscapes of the album, in its most extreme moments exceeding the denseness of all their previous works. Even though "A World In Their Screams" was conceived as a very extreme album, during its three-year development - a first version had been composed around the time of the album "Sunwar The Dead" - this record aspired to ever more radical dimensions, eclipsing ELEND's whole discography in its raw violence and oppressive atmosphere.
In its musical superlatives, the result finally rendered the original concept of the cycle obsolete. Hence, "A World ..." marks the premature finale of this series of albums - an exceedingly dramatic ending at that. And this leaves one question unanswered: how to follow up on such an album anyway?

ELEND Vorabhören und Höchstbewertungen von "A World In Their Screams"

Unter http://www.prophecyproductions.de/streams/elend-stasis.m3u ist ein Vorabhören von "A World In Their Screams" (VÖ: 20.4.2007) möglich, das schon jetzt als bestes ELEND Album gehandelt wird. Die ersten Höchstpunktzahlen wie 10/10 Punkte im Orkus und 15/15 Punkte im Legacy bestätigen dies.

Seit jeher nehmen ELEND eine musikalische Ausnahmestellung ein. Instrumentell einzuordnen zwischen klassischer Orchestermusik und ernster Avantgarde-Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts, jedoch durchzogen von der dichten Atmosphäre und Zugänglichkeit einer Band wie Dead Can Dance und der Gewalt extremen Metals, vollzieht das französisch-österreichische Ensemble schon seit seinem ersten Album ("Lecons de Tenebres" von 1994) eine individuelle Synthese aus Techniken der ernsten Musik und einer für die populären Musikformen typische Eingängigkeit und Direktheit.
"A World In Their Screams" ist der dritte Teil des ursprünglich fünf Alben umfassenden "Winds"-Zyklus, der 2003 mit "Winds Devouring Men" begonnen und im Folgejahr mit "Sunwar The Dead" fortgesetzt wurde. Über 30 Musiker und Sänger trugen zu dem massiven Klangbild des Albums bei, das nun in seinen extremsten Momenten die Dichte aller bisherigen Werke sprengt. Obwohl bereits als äußerst extremes Album konzipiert, entwickelte sich "A World In Their Screams" im Laufe seiner ca. dreijährigen Entstehungszeit - eine erste Fassung war bereits zu Zeiten von "Sunwar The Dead" komponiert - in immer radikalere Gefilde und stellt mit seiner rohen Gewalt und bedrückenden Atmosphäre die gesamte ELEND-Diskographie in seinen Schatten.
Das Resultat ließ schließlich mit seinen musikalischen Superlativen das ursprüngliche Zyklus-Konzept hinfällig werden. Somit stellt "A World..." nach nun vorzeitig und mit einem Paukenschlag sondergleichen das Ende der Album-Reihe dar. Und die Frage steht offen im Raum: was soll nach einem solchen Album überhaupt noch folgen?