Review | Dispyria – The Story Of Marion Dust

El Puerto Records

Concept-albums are not really a big surprise anymore. In rock and metal many artists have tried their luck, some with good results, others with not such a great outcome. I guess it is a matter of taste. This third conceptual record comes from the mastermind of bass player Juergen Walzer. He has some interesting singers on board like Zak Stevens of Savatage fame, Primal Fear shouter Ralf Scheepers and Carsten Schulz (Lazarus Dream) plus the guitarists Wolfgang Sing (Desperadoz) and Markus Pfeffer (Lazarus Dream). Especially on the vocal front Dispyria sounds very promising.

SAVATAGE MEETS AVANTASIA

With a press kit supplied by the record company you quite often find bands or projects the new product is compared with. Dispyria should sound as a cross between Savatage and Avantasia. Clearly the presence of Zak Stevens has inspired this comparison. When you travel through the eight spun out songs a certain alikeness does shine through including lots of powerful and somewhat bombastic riffs and song features. Especially ,,Blue Mirror’’ is a power driven song while ,,Eternal Eye’’ has a more mystic yet again powerful atmosphere with some ‘spoken’ vocals before the track really speeds up with some blistering guitar work and bombastic end.

BLUEPRINT OF DISPYRIA

,,Eternal Eye’’ is something like the blueprint for the whole record. I certainly enjoyed the album as a whole. Juergen Walzer has written decent songs and has made sure it all sounds more than acceptable. And with the three singers Walzer certainly hit the bulls-eye. I could try to explain the whole concept behind this album but what would be left for the listener to discover? Like most concept-albums this is about dreams and reality, a certain fate awaiting the head person in the story. I rather leave that up to you to discover the story behind the story.

Release date: 10 Februari 2023