Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
A nuclear assault on the ears but one carried out with a soft pillow and sense of overwhelming completion, a sense of unhurried labour mixed with the temptation to overthrow any negativity that may be shared in close quarters as yet again Europe’s Heavy Metal and Rock elite show where the natural homes of Britain and America have been going awry for too long. Such is the pounding aural spectacle attached to Pyogenesis’ latest album A Century In The Curse Of Time.
The allusion to the mighty machines of the past, the engines in which have been replaced by plastics and the uninspiring all gather, both on the album sleeve and through the nods placed down before them on the record and the allusion to Time decaying, of greatness in engineering and in life, no more now than a shadow of its place in history; the message that Pyogenesis convey with such intricate and possibly alarming precision.
Like all their Metal cousins, regardless of from Germany, Scandinavia, Russia or beyond, Pyogenesis capture a mood into which the listener may not have thought that’s where their lives were heading, that the crash of symbolism that rains down through the guitar and Flo V. Schwarz’s vocals could be so framed and digested. It is into this majesty of Metal delight that the uncertainty of what the 20th Century actually achieved; it is almost as if the songs are suggesting that as a species we have actually found a way to de-evolve, to somehow make the mastery of machine and the pursuit of monetary gain more important than keeping our souls intact. It is a pursuit that can only end in bitterness in the end.
Flo V. Schwarz, Gizz Butt, Malte Brauer and Jan Rathje have once more combined to make A Century In The Curse Of Time something of an epic within the natural story that they offer, and in songs such as This Won’t Last Forever, The Best is Yet To Come, Lifeless and the album title track that feeling of the epic is enhanced and made abundantly fruitful, it burns with the appetite of the gracious and the half starved and the sound is rich and one that you never want to end.
A Century In The Curse Of Time is an album that decorates the senses with colour and fascination, it offers so much in its intensity that the listener cannot help but be overwhelmed, both by the music on offer and the serious message of discontent held within.
A storm approaches with Pyogenesis’ name all over it, however it is a storm that a shelter should not be sought, it should be grasped and held as an example of what can be achieved when the mind is unshackled.
Ian D. Hall