TOCCATA

For those who don't know (which I'm sure most of you don't) Mekong Delta were a German studio project comprised of musicians who's identities generally remained secret due to legal and contractual obligations with other bands and records who's musical output was homogeneous fusion of 80's thrash metal and classical music - and not in the cheesy neoclassical power metal sense either.

Toccata is a great song truly a perfect thrash synthesis of classical music with great use of dynamics, the guitar is very distorted but still doesn't detract from the musicality of the piece and the drums add a real fury and drive with an exceptional performance in every regard. Black Betty is a fairly uninteresting cover and is worth skipping altogether, the vocals are good for a bit of a laugh though and I guess it's interesting to see how technical they made it complete with harmonised tapping. Interludium is another fantastic classical piece, this time relying more on the violin recordings and less on the metal instrumentation, the drums again shine here though, the double kick sections are so well placed it's genius that people thought to do this with classical music.

Toccata is pitifully short but it's still well worth while and gives a great indication of what the band are like (excluding the cover song). Recommended to fans of thrash metal and curious prog metal fans in general who don't mind the more extreme side of the spectrum, better off going straight to one of their albums though (I highly recommend Visions Fugitives).