The subtle arc of suspense on the new Them concept album, ’Psychedelic Enigma‘, brings to mind legendary horror movie classics: The power metal recording kicks off with extremely tough, brutal and fast-paced numbers, spinning an enigmatic storyline around its mysterious protagonist and only revealing his secret – similar to the blockbusters ’The Others‘ (featuring Nicole Kidman) or ’The Sixth Sense‘ (featuring Bruce Willis) – at the very end, in an epic-progressive grand finale.
The content of the disc takes up where its four predecessors ’Sweet Hollow‘ (2016), ’Manor Of The Se7en Gables‘ (2018), ’Return To Hemmersmoor‘ (2020), and ’Fear City‘ (2022) left off, but is even more powerful musically. “’Psychedelic Enigma‘ not only includes some of the rawest and most fast-paced tracks of our career to date, but also a number of sound experiments and technical masterpieces,” guitarist Markus Ullrich describes the current album and goes on to talk about legendary sound engineer Randy Burns (Megadeth, Kreator, Possessed): “Randy has given our new material that ultra-aggressive sound, and when an icon like him does that kind of thing, he of course has good reasons for it.”
No doubt about it, ’Psychedelic Enigma‘ sees Markus Ullrich, vocalist KK Fossor, guitarist Markus Johansson (Sylencer, 4ARM), bassist Alexander Palma and keyboardist Richie Seibel (Lanfear, Ivanhoe) raise the energy level of their songs even higher. “For us, it‘s not a change in style but a conscious step towards greater dynamics and stronger extremes,” explain the Them musicians. ’Psychedelic Enigma‘ is not just a new Them recording, but the boldest and most detailed offering to date by this outstanding band!
The debut single “Catanonia” is a furious number with catchy hook lines. The catatonic state which lasted 17 years is now abruptly broken.
You can watch the lyric video here:
https://youtu.be/punEcMBRQ5E
