Review by Jack on December 11, 2002.

By now most of you are probably all sick to death from the recent wave of melodic metal. There is such an overflow of the whole ‘Gothenburg’ sound from bands that aren’t even from Gothenburg, let alone Sweden. Disillusion has been fiddling around with metal since 1994, and by 2001 they finally came up with an EP. “Three Neuron Kings” is their take on melodic death, and it is quite an interesting interpretation of the melodic death metal scene.

“Three Neuron Kings” is the sort of EP that serves as a perfect, and more to the point, accessible introduction to the world of melodic death. By saying accessible, you could also call this EP ‘diet melodic death metal,’ or something along those lines. “Three Neuron Kings” is a great first serving to those new to melodic death as it doesn’t come ripe with nasty death metal vocals, overly harsh songs, or grinding and incessant riffing. This of course isn’t to say that those folks who consider themselves ‘hard as nails’ won’t find anything here also, because this is simply not the case.

There are some wonderful moments on “Three Neuron Kings” that show that Disillusion has something truly stupendous to offer the metal world in future years. The title track, ‘Three Neuron Kings,’ is one of those shining lights. It has a nice somber intro, followed by some beautiful clean singing over the top of some clever and infectious acoustic work. This is something that other bands should take note of. Song structures like this are truly worth striving for. Disillusion has the capacity to make waves in metal along the same lines as what Gardenian did with their album “Sindustries”. They have the same oddball attributes that Gardenian has, but at the same time have a good amount of things working in their favour to make them an interesting prospect to the discerning listener.

Bottom Line: There is a lot to like about Disillusion, and their hard-work has paid handsome dividends with “Three Neuron Kings”. In a few years don’t be surprised if you see these three lads sitting besides other leading names in the field.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 7
Production: 8
Originality: 7
Overall: 7

Rating: 7.6 out of 10