Disillusion's 'Gloria' is difficult to describe because it's pretty weird and innovative so any close comparison takes a bit of thinking about. But that's what I'm here for so here goes: it's got much about it of the industrial with touches of progressive and tech-metal here and there, with some loose similarities to bands such as Ministry or Rammstein. Being more complex than, say, Ministry's 'N.W.O.', Disillusion therefore have less of a sense of their strong, catchy hooks because there's more to divert the mind from the single-minded hammering of the Ministry track. Like Ministry, Disillusion sometimes jump from one sound to another during a track, quiet one moment then a blast of noise the next but like Ministry it is tastefully done and doesn't jar on the ear.

Vocally there is a lot of spoken word (which would probably get annoying), a lot of distorted voices, again a little like Ministry. Disillusion is based more on instrumentation than sampling and sound effects, although there's a bit of programming and keys. Also thrown into the mix in places are female orchestral choruses, and what sound like violins in 'Dread It' (actually it reminds me of the strings in 'Eleanor Rigby' by The Beatles!). So it is a bit of a musical gumbo but there seems to be method to the madness rather than just throwing a lot of noise together and seeing what happens. It's got a few catchy hooks - check out the title track or the opener, 'The Black Sea' for example.

I think Disillusion's 'Gloria' is likely to appeal to the dedicated cyber metallers out there but it's probably a bit too 'way out' for fans of mainstream metal.

***

Review by Amanda Hyne

Band website

Label website