Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Panzerballett
Label: Gentle Art Of Music
Released: 2015
Length: 55:48
Rating: 4.5/5
Even though a good two years have passed since this album came out, and even though a fresh new Panzerballett album, »Christmas Death Jazz«, is already out there (and, by the way, it completely sold out on the current tour of these sharp jazz metal innovators), it’s only fair to put at least what’s currently within reach under the microscope. So, the album »Breaking Brain«.
Panzerballett are a quintet from Munich who develop a thoroughly eclectic musical identity. Although one pole of the band is forever tied to lucidly cheeky »imitation« of originals, which is what they actually »got famous« for thanks to their incredibly distinctive re-interpretations, the other pole of that same musical body is strictly fixated on creating original music.
»Breaking Brain« is the band’s fourth studio album, if we count only those that stand out for their share of original material. On »Breaking Brain« Panzerballett dig deeper into their character as a fiendishly technical, complex yet supremely unusual and interesting band, one that develops a completely unique expression you can spot from a mile away, where elements of modern metal, jazz, funk, pop and everything in between melt together with great taste. When you throw around the words »modern metal«, you have to keep in mind that the band is hugely taken with the sound of guitar phrases by the likes of Messhugah, Ne Obliviscaris and/or Leprous. Syncopated, palm-muted polyrhythmic riffs in the background, then over them wildly torn-loose variations of all sorts of improvised inserts, courtesy of the forever restless saxophone and of course both guitars (Frantik Nervesaw Massacre). So? Welcome to the realm of seven- and eight-string guitars. When it comes to the collision of jazz with the described elements of modern prog metal (the magic word »djent« fits right in), Panzerballett are hard to pin down, if at all. Band leader and guitarist Jan Zehrfeld is a big fan of the adventurism of Scott Henderson, as well as of Tribal Tech, and that’s where Panzerballett inherited the philosophy of absolutely spontaneous drifting in unbridled idea fusion, where Panzeballett once again masterfully prove how deftly they bridge seemingly unbridgeable gaps between genres.
The music is downright goofy and makes the listener burst out laughing on the spot. Yet it’s venomously technically complex. The evergreen character of the classic output of the likes of Gentle Giant stirs up similar emotions. You can hear the inspiration of Frank Zappa in everything, while Panzerballett also have no trouble wrapping their sound in the obscure post-apocalyptic world of Robert Fripp’s visions. Extremely ragged atonality, and at moments an absolute feeling that the compositions are literally falling apart through the polyrhythmic structures that pop up, in which the lines of the individual instruments cruise over one another, yet Panzerballett astonish most of all when, out of such apparent chaos, with great elegance and technical aesthetics, they once again find themselves fused into one in exceptional tightness. You’ll be hard-pressed to find such a superb imitation of a typewriter today as the feeling that comes alive when you listen to, say, Typewritter, though you could look for the original sin of such associations in the pioneering work of old-timers Gentle Giant. There’s a smashing cover of the famous Muppet Show tune Mahna Mahna, and at the very end Mancini’s Pink Panther, where the saxophone deliberately gives way to a playful dash of bebop. In the second half of the album the band also tackles Shunyai, written by McLaughlin’s colleague Trilok Gurtu. The tabla master guests on this track too. The cross-cutting hyperplasia of low-tuned walls of riffs and eruptions of saxophone lines communes with exceptional penetrating force and blasphemous sonics. Broken drum rhythms and nimbly anchored, thoroughly comprehensible melodic bass lines of organic volume give the whole essence of this record the charm of compositional elusiveness and absolute dynamism (in the broadest sense of the word).
In short. Welcome to yet another story full of unpredictable forms, which never stops thrilling and entertaining with its axiom of “expect the unexpected” and its union of the »incompatible«. All the great music gourmets, whom the triviality of composing can never satisfy and who are always searching for something more, will snap up »Breaking Brain«. Something avant-garde and challenging, utterly unhinged in its ideas and never heard before. In short. »Breaking Brain« is yet another exceptional musical pearl from under Panzerballett’s baton, one you just can’t get enough of and can’t get tired of. This quintet never runs out of adventurousness, and with such special musical vision, it never will.
Line-up
Jan Zehrfeld – guitar
Joe Doblhofer – guitar
Alexander Von Hagre – tenor saxophone
Heiko Jung – bass guitar
Sebastian Lanser – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Trilok Gurti – tabla & vocals on tracks 7 & 8
Production
Jan Zehrfeld & Josy Friebel
Tracklist
1. Euroblast
2. Typewritter
3. Der Saxdiktator
4. Mahna Mahna
5. Smoochy Borg Funk
6. Frantik Nervesaw Massacre
7. Shunyai / Intro
8. Shunyai
9. Pink Panther
