Sieges Even
Life Cycle

Thrash metal is an occasional companion for this German band, a child of the '80s, an efficient but awkward collaborator. Sieges Even take the raw sound of German metal as a way to catch the bus, arriving at the first progressive station already tired of the abrasive rhythm, too inadequate for their technical verve, for their craving for clean and dynamic geometries. We are on techno-thrash shores: the technique performing acrobatics without a net above a musical ground made in Alemannia, produced by Kalle Trapp (already working with Violent Force and Pestilence).

Born in 1985 in Munich, they arrive at the debut album "Life Cycle" in 1988 after having released as many as 3 self-produced demo tapes. The lineup includes Franz Herde on vocals, Markus Steffen on guitars, and brothers Oliver and Alex Holzwarth on bass and drums respectively, future Blind Guardian and Paradox members. Among the 7 songs of "Life Cycle," we do not find metal turmoil, but continuous time changes, jazzy inserts, electrified arpeggios, which recall the cover: heart and brain are one with the machine. In fact, the rhythm section even appears robotic in mechanisms, in speed breaks, anticipating the mathematical fury of Atheist, particularly of the Flynn-Patterson duo. One might even mention, for comparisons, the Watchtower, certainly more skilled in weaving digestible plots without necessarily falling into the mundane (speaking of the excellent "Energetic Disassembly"), or the equally compact Realm of "Endless War." Everything seems to be in place, but there is also singer Franz Herde who insists on singing in the high tones of Bruce Dickinson throughout the album, not participating in the songwriting (even though the music is in the name of Sieges Even), but continuing to insert himself in the middle of the three musicians' plots, like someone intrusive among three noble spirits who are discussing wrapped in their cloaks, perhaps in front of any walled Italian city (Cittadella, Montagnana or San Gimignano). The poor fellow tries with various "ahem..." to say his piece but is marked and closed off by the circle of great philosophers. Through the singer's mouth emerge attacks on the Chilean dictatorial regime, as in the splendid opener "Repression And Resistance":

"We await the Holy Father and his promised blessings/Speaking of democracy and charity/All at once the rays of hope are broken in the stadiums of Chile/And the resistance is written especially in the eyes of a child of hungry peasants..."

The life cycle is discussed, which is altered, in the title track:

"...A new life has appeared - the birth of another link in a deep process/Of alteration and progress, nothing remains the same/Like a tadpole egg to the final phase stage/Everything develops, learns, there's no reason for rhyme almost always!/Like the climb of a spirit that one day, somehow will conclude/Even the life cycle of the world ends when the progression is altered (synthetically)..."

The two instrumental pieces, "The Roads To Iliad" and "Arcane," are positioned opposite each other. The first sometimes appears indigestible, yet well-conceived, despite the song form being dissolved, sacrificed in the name of technical forays, with much atmosphere and understandable to our untrained ear, intricate, certainly fascinating. The great merit of the album is the fact of regenerating with each listen, thanks also to Kalle Trapp's production, which appears good, well-balanced, without preference for one instrument over the other (heaven forbid limiting the verve of the Holzwarth brothers). "Arcane" is, on the contrary, an acoustic fragment, under a minute, by guitarist Markus Steffen, almost a halved "Bron-Yr Aur," a lovely declaration of guitar synthesis, in the midst of pieces with extended duration. Continuing with the myth of Atlantis, which hooks and seduces the sonic plots in "Straggler From Atlantis" (over 12 minutes!) or the "David" star trampled in concentration camps ("But at nightfall of civilization, when reason fell and Fascism prevailed A malpractice tarnished the world, rendered by a subservient mass!"). Man does not listen to reason and tries to voluntarily forget, closing his eyes to history, this is the message of the Munich quartet, accompanied by an epic, acoustic sound, with a delicate rhythm section that, however, takes off after a couple of minutes, to resume the lost thread of hyper-technical metal.

The recklessness of German thrash is only hinted at, certainly not organized, as the main vehicle to carry the emotions of the pieces into our souls, with the consequence that in the following album "Steps," thrash is eliminated in favor of a totally progressive rock approach more genuine, although difficult to label, more suitable to highlight the rational sonic plots. And without any regret for the scraping and scratching sound, for feeling in competition with other German bands of the time, for the Slayer-like speed only hinted at, for the more thought-out and less raw solos. Here one cannot speak of a "great refusal" but a simple passage in thrash waters that will return to wash over the Holzwarth brothers, called to revive the fortunes of Paradox in the comeback "Collision Course" of 2000. Or to renew the speed and technique for the nearly twenty-year-old German combo.

In the inner booklet, one finds the aphorism from Brecht, taken from "Life of Galileo": "Whoever does not know the truth is merely an ignorant, but whoever knows it and calls it a lie is a villain." So, not only four musicians busy moving picks and sticks but people who take a stand, show their convictions alongside the musical message. A sign of maturity that is already the signal of the band's desire to look beyond this album, beyond the raw sound of '80s thrash.

"Life Cycle" is therefore a good album, released at the right moment for the experimentation of many bands, if you will, but not indispensable, overflowing with geometries, marred by a vocal performance not up to par and with the small flaw of technique preceding songwriting, while the brain communicates with the heart through circuits, generating cold emotions. Like a plunge into the icy waters of a Scottish lake.