Anyone who is trying to apply the mechanisms of a successful career in Heavy Metal to Pyogenesis is in for a huge surprise. The Stuttgart based Metal act wholeheartedly renounced every single business rule from the very start, defied conventions and grinningly granted themselves absolution. They launched a career that was destined to fail on paper. Yet, these reckless Swabians quickly turned into one of the most exciting, most innovative and most legendary bands to emerge in the nineties.
Someone who is looking for salvation in the antics of Swedish Death Metal (1991), who is en passant inventing Gothic Metal (1992) only to embrace stunning Rock harmonies (1995) and tear it all down again at the brink of the new millennium is not making music for fame and money. Instead, it’s all about catharsis, about proving all those soulless drawing board projects and heartless mechanisms wrong. “We are making music purely for self realization”, front man Flo V. Schwarz emphasizes. “If
you’re able to be successful with it, cool. If not, also cool, it’s just an extra.” Pyogenesis truly did what they wanted to do. And, in 2002, went into anonymity after delivering six stunning records and becoming the pioneers of an entire generation.
13 years without a new album had to trickle into oblivion until this German Alternative Metal hydra stirred again – a time, note well, in which the music industry changed radically. “When we released our last album before our break in 2002, neither YouTube nor Facebook were a thing”, Flo V.
Schwarz looks back on the times of “She makes me wish I had a gun”, their most successful effort yet. And finally, in 2015, they triumphantly returned with “A century in the curse of time”. The silence was broken. “I wrote songs more or less constantly but simply wasn’t ready for a release”, says the vocalist and guitarist. “We went away on our own free will and returned likewise when the time was ripe.”
It was imperative, back then, to bring back one of Germany’s most wilful ships on the exceptional course it so untameable sailed between 1991 and 2002: A course of uniqueness that set Pyogenesis apart from all the other bands. What made them so unique was their belief that genres and drawers are nothing but obsolete. Despite their bottomless variety, though, they retained a remarkable rigour and a trademark sound that was recognizable even among a 1,000 other bands. Their huge
melodies and their unparalleled harmonies are a red thread in their career and render the question whether they are playing Metal, Rock or something else utterly meaningless. No matter what they do – Pyogenesis are Pyogenesis. Period. That was what made their first decade of their chimeric work so exceptional. That is what’s continuing to do so now.
Who, like them, raided the hunting grounds from extreme Death Metal to straight in-your-face Rock sans reservation is living music to the fullest. That is also what is distinguishing their latest opus “A Kingdom To Disappear”. Naturally, it’s not the work of juvenile “Sturm und Drang” culprits anymore – and still it’s brimful with inventive talent, pioneering deeds and diversity.
Success stories like this are most welcome among the artists Flo V. Schwarz recruited for his label Hamburg Records, a new field of work that was responsible for his move from Stuttgart to Hamburg and for the lengthy break of his band. “The company is big enough now, allowing me to focus on my own band again.” That’s what brings us the next Pyogenesis album only 18 months after “A century in the curse of time”, a sequel to the Victorian trilogy they started with the last album. “Both are in
the same musical vein, both are united by the same background of social changes in the 19th century”, Schwarz states. “This record embraces each and every of the band’s creative eras.”
Fans couldn’t be happier with an announcement like this. Like it’s the most ordinary thing to do, “A Kingdom To Disappear” merges blast beats, melancholic grandeur, symphonic elements and proper Metal craftsmanship into a cohesive masterpiece, adding some intoxicating new flowers to the exuberant Pyogenesis flora. It’s not the nineties anymore, to be sure. However, fearless pioneers like Pyogenesis emphasize that this is no reason whatsoever to stop being innovative.
Tracklist:
1. Sleep Is Good (Intro)
2. Every Man For Himself And God Against All
3. I Have Seen My Soul
4. A Kingdom To Disappear (It’s Too Late)
5. New Helvetia
6. That’s When Everybody Gets Hurt
7. We (1848)
8. Blaze, My Northern Flame
9. Everlasting Pain
Line-Up:
Flo V. Schwarz – Guitar & Vocals
Gizz Butt – Guitar & Backing Vocals
Malte Brauer – Bass & Backing Vocals
Jan Räthje – Drums
