Year: 2020
Total Time: 55:37
Label: Butler Records
Being around for almost 35 years and having each of your albums to be the talk of the town by an -albeit limited, but “trained” circle of fans- is an important achievement. Especially when we talk about MEKONG DELTA, the intellectual child of Ralph Hubert who since 1987, and with a break between 1997 and 2007, has almost always released quality records. One of the main features of MEKONG DELTA is that the band members change very often. For “Tales Of A Future Past” Hubert hired the Swedish guitarist of THEORY IN PRACTICE Peter Sjoberg, who brought a different air to the riffs and generally to the guitar work, an air of renewal but also neoclassicism. On drums, he kept his partner Alex Landenburg (KAMELOT, CYHRA) as an ideal partner for the solid rhythm section and he did the same for the vocals by keeping Martin Rammel, in a role of storyteller who narrates a gloomy upcoming reality.
From the imposing cover of David Demaret, you suspect that something ominous is taking place inside the album. The truth is that MEKONG DELTA never made music for “easy” listeners, so they do not do it even now. With the four instrumental songs called “Landscape 1-4” (4 is a necessary adaptation of classical music, specifically in the “suite Espanola” of Albeniz and Carasco), strategically placed to define the structure of the album in 4 parts, “Tales Of A Future Past “is full of high quality song writing. Compositions like “Mental Entropy” and “Mindeater” are possessed by a Thrash dynamic, “The Hollow Men” and “When All Hope Is Gone” are Progressive dynamites and “A Farewell to Eternity” is a song with a Progressive Art Rock background more than metal. Everything seems to be positioned exactly where it should be, the production (by Hubert himself) is excellent, although to me the guitars sound a little further back and the rhythm section further forward (hm, now that I think about it, it seems very reasonable) and each note is so well worked out down to the last detail.
“Tales Of A Future Past” is definitely the most digestible album of MEKONG DELTA but do not be fooled that this will be an “easy listening” experience. It’s not even their best record, but certainly not the weakest. If you discovered the band with this album, I suggest that you listen to their past album in chronological order and let yourself be captivated by their evolutionary course! For those who know them superficially, you will be happy to find many concise elements from all periods of the band. As for the hardcore fans of the Germans, I have nothing else to write about. I imagine that they have already pressed “play” too many times!
Rating: 7/10
Editor: Dimos Karadimos
Related Link: MEKONG DELTA – Official Page
