Steps (album)

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Steps
Studio album by Sieges Even

Publication
(s)

1990

admission

March and April 1990

Label (s) Steamhammer / SPV

Title (number)

7th

occupation
  • Bass : Oliver Holzwarth

production

Sieges Even and Charlie Bauerfeind

Studio (s)

Lakeside Studios, Utting

chronology
Life Cycle
(1988) 		Steps A Sense of Change
(1991)

Steps is the second studio album by the German progressive metal band Sieges Even . It was released on August 13, 1990 by Steamhammer / SPV .

Creation and publication

Work on the second album began immediately after the release of the debut Life Cycle . Steps was recorded and mixed in March and April 1990 in the Lakeside Studios in Utting. Guest musicians were Joe Pöhlmann (piano), Norbert Beyerlein (keyboard), Thomas Hellhake (violin) and Michael Morenga (guitar). The band produced the album, Charlie Bauerfeind acted as co-producer.

Track list

  1. Tangerine Windows of Solace - 25:11
    1. Alba
    2. Epitoms
    3. Apotheosis
    4. Season of Seclusion (The Prison)
    5. An Essay of Relief (A Tangerine Dream)
    6. Disintegration of Lasting Hope
    7. Elegy (Window of Perception)
  2. Steps - 4:02
  3. Corridors - 6:40
  4. The Vaccum Tube Processor - 4:45
  5. An Act of Acquiescence - 7:09
  6. Anthem Chapter I - 4:33
  7. Anthem Chapter II - 1:45

style

Sieges Even move away from the cold, technical metal of the debut album on Steps and play varied and virtuoso Progressive Metal . The compositions are complex and interspersed with surprising breaks , playful and atmospheric passages. In addition to the usual metal instrumentation, acoustic guitars and violins are also used. Occasionally influences from the music of the Middle Ages and jazz are noticeable. The singing is often exalted, the lyrics are sometimes puzzling. The text of the two “Anthem” pieces is inspired by Wilfred Owen's poem Anthem for Doomed Youth .

reception

The album was positively received by the press as early as 1990 and is now considered a progressive metal classic. Wolfgang Schäfer from Rock Hard thinks that the band succeeds in “creating complex sound structures with an atmospheric density whose intensity and musical abundance one simply cannot escape”, Boris Kaiser discovers on the album “Music for its own sake that does not want to underscore, neither enlightens nor denounces or coerces, but without any meta-level in its beauty and purity simply IS ". Michael Hirle from Babyblauen Seiten sums it up: “It's more than just music and that's why it's so unique.” Both Rock Hard and eclipsed magazine included Steps in their respective lists of the most important prog metal albums.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Baby Blue Prog Reviews: Sieges Even. Steps , Baby Blue Pages , accessed December 10, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b Wolfgang Schäfer: Sieges Even. Steps , Rock Hard # 42, accessed December 10, 2012.
  3. ↑ a b c Rock Hard No. 270, p. 95.
  4. ↑ eclipsed No. 144, p. 31.