The term "progressive" has become something of a misnomer in music over the last few decades. It once referred to a band that was constantly evolving, reinventing their sound, album to album, song to song. At some point, though, that term simply applied to bands that played in odd time signatures and mixed myriad musical influences into their songs and albums, not necessarily doing much in the form of progression. I'm not an elitist; I understand what the term once meant, and what it means today. I have no problems with it. So I found it odd when I was taken aback with Disillusion's first full-length since Back To Times Of Splendor. On Gloria, gone are the complex, brutal guitar melodies and drum work; gone are the gut-wrenching vocals and death metal exploitations. Instead it's all been replaced by simpler riffs and vocals more akin to industrial metal than the progressive death metal that was on Back To Times Of Splendor. Disillusion seems to have embraced the original meaning of "progressive," releasing an album that is seemingly the product of a different band.

"The Black Sea" starts Gloria off with some violin, not unknown to fans of their previous work. The smoke soon clears, though, and once Andy Schmidt starts to "sing" -- in a distorted, half-spoken word style, accompanied by female harmonies during the chorus -- you know something has changed. "Dread It" follows, and largely travels the same road; though it features an utterly distracting, herky-jerky guitar riff, and the gothic overtones during the chorus are boring. A truly oddball track is next: "Don't Go Any Further" begins with what seems to be some processed, off-the-cuff spoken words -- "Um...I saw you this morning, when you were ironing all the...all the...uh...you know...all the stuff that we need...". It makes no sense. And it's repeated again during the first verse, and the second verse if more spoken word nonsense. The chorus is simply the title shouted over a groovy riff. (In fact, the lyrics in the booklet are simply "don't go any further" written over and over again.) The song ends in a cacophony of disjointed noises. "Too Many Broken Cease Fires" and "The Hole We Are In" are the only two songs that seem to be a distant product of the band that released Back To Times Of Splendor. But even these songs are not without the new oddities the band has injected into the rest of the album.

This formula is essentially repeated over the course of eleven songs. Nearly every song features spoken word verses, utilizing some kind of vocal processing, samples, industrial-sounding (i.e. artificial) rhythms, simple, groovy guitar riffs, and an astounding lack of anything as memorable as found on Back To Times Of Splendor. However, with that said, Gloria is a decent and interesting album. It's just not very comparable to what this band has done in the past. But taken as a singular piece of art, it's a decent progressive industrial metal release. Gloria is simply a bit too short on character appeal.

Website: http://www.disillusion.de
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/timesofsplendor