Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Panzerballett
Label: Gentle Art Of Music
Release: 2017
Runtime: 69:25
Rating: 4.5/5
Is there anyone out there right now who’s more gloriously off the rails than Panzerballet? Positively off the rails. This Munich quintet, who years ago announced all their trademark artistic quirks at flint-hard volume, keep their reputation as one of the most lucid bands around, especially when it comes to the phenomenon of parody. You can’t take Panzerballet seriously »at first listen«. Really? Not quite. That’s just the trap your listener’s association cortex can set for you, especially on a superficial spin. Because in the same breath as they parody a given musical standard with blazing lucidity, Panzerballet are also one of the most technically refined, polished and brilliantly unhinged outfits around, where the adjective avant-garde fits every move Panzerballet make like a key in a lock. Panzerballet are heralds of the new progressive. It’s incredible how far this genre has leapt in recent years, which in itself hints at the need to freshen up the existing genre taxonomy in music.
This time around, Panzerballet took on eight Christmas standards, carved them up flint-hard, and layered them with plenty of cross-rhythms, a pile of atonal figures, vague jazz variations and, since we’re talking metal, the obligatory down-tuned, fashionably aesthetic »djent« thunder to evoke »progressiveness«. In short: with their feats of exceptional technical chops and layered ideas, Panzerballet literally bewilder the listener. Waves of dissonant interweaving and chaotic motivic clashes are deliberate moves, and in those moments the composition seems to be falling apart across the board. Then, the very next moment, the band runs into a tangible motivic »orderliness«.
The band members are once again mixed into the compositions in a way that keeps clearing a path for one another into the realm of (to put it mildly) improvisational indulgence. Needless to say, the unpredictable and the spontaneous are once more clearly woven into how the compositions develop. You never know what’s going to »shake and rattle« you at the next motivic and rhythmic shift in a given track. Sax solos suddenly flow into sections where bass flicking takes center stage, which is then replaced by witty guitar soloing that shifts from metallized sonics all the way to totally clean tones.
The album is packed with vocal guest spots from prominent names to whom lucid figures in the music world are anything but strangers. First among them is Mike Keneally, known for having once worked with Frank Zappa; another oddball in his own direction is Matthias »IA« Eklund, who shares a female-male vocal duet with Jen Majura on the opening White Christmas. Since we’re on Eklund, just a hint: the man is also an incredible guitarist who leaves even Steve Vai in the dust when it comes to speed. The other guests are listed below. And speaking of vocals, they’re once again there more as a point of orientation, which comes in handy if you get »lost« in the transformed version of the original and can’t tell which Christmas standard you’re actually listening to. But these vocal melodies (»Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer« and so on….) by no means imitate Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin; they speak to the listener differently. Picture a time before the internet, with color TV barely a thing, somewhere around 1960, when you’d go to, say, the barber during the Christmas season to spruce yourself up, and while he did his job he’d whistle and hum one of the famous Christmas tunes. In short: no less lucid than the instrumental side of this album.
Truth be told, on this album Panzerballet don’t bring anything they haven’t said before. It’s just a series of new covers of a kind they’ve never tackled in their career, which is exactly why »X Mass Death Jazz« is so special, totally different and, above all, simply a fantastic piece of work that never stops entertaining and thrilling. If you’re a fan of the band and a music gourmet who’s drawn first and foremost to instrumental wizardry and musical experimentation, this one belongs on your shelf.
This is Jazz! Literally metal jazz that will delight you immensely, and not just during the Christmas hours, but any other time too. Whenever you spin it. Panzerballet remain musical lunatics without equal. With this direction, the band has become hugely popular among music enthusiasts who demand only the best for their ears. For illustration: the band completely sold out the album »X-Mass Death Jazz« on their latest autumn-winter European tour. The album came out at the end of November 2017, but when we caught Panzerballet in Graz last December, they’d already run out of copies.
Line-up
an Zehrfeld – guitar
Joe Doblhofer – guitar
Alexander Von Hagre – tenor saxophone
Heiko Jung – bass guitar
Sebastian Lanser – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Jen Majura – vocals on track 1
Mattias “IA” Eklundh – vocals on tracks 1 and 6
Martin Strasser – vocals on track 4
Mike Keneally – vocals on track 8
Steffan Kummerer – vocals on track 8
Production
Jan Zehrfeld & Josy Friebel
Tracklist
01 White Christmas
02 Kling, Glöckchen
03 Little Drummer Boy
04 Es kommt bald
05 Last Christmas
06 Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer
07 For Whom The Jingle Bells Toll
08 Let It Snow
BONUS TRACKS (instrumental versions):
09 White Christmas
10 Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer
11 Es kommt bald
12 Let It Snow
