Strange Encounter

My first taste of this German band came on the “Holy Dio” Ronnie James Dio tribute, on which they performed a smoking cover of Black Sabbath’s “Heaven and Hell”. This track alone was enough to convince me to pick up Strange Encounter. I was unsure of what to expect since finding any samples of this band’s work was just about impossible. Actually, “Heaven and Hell” was a very good choice for a cover track, as Enola Gay’s style is quite similar to that song – weighty traditional heavy metal mixed with some dark power metal.

Right from the get-go when “Enola Gay” begins you’ll notice the band plays a rather groove-oriented style of metal, but still with plenty of aggression. In this sense, to call this stuff power metal is sort of misleading. First of all, vocalist Peter Diersmann is quite a bit different from traditional power metal singers, using a much lower, more aggressive style. In fact, there aren’t any high-pitched vocals to be found here. Instead, imagine something like Angel Dust’s Dirk Thurisch mixed with Evergrey’s Tom Englund. If that sounds bad, trust me, Diersmann is a very pleasant surprise, a refreshing break from all of the high-pitched wailers out there. Also, the guitars, played by Cagge (?) and Nico Luttenberg, are unspectacular but still very solid with thick and memorable riffs. The solos aren’t all that great, but they’re not bad either. Even the bass is audible, switching between doing its own thing and (most often) providing a heavy bottom-end for the songs. Backing everything up is Marc Könneke on drums. Though not necessarily flashy his work is very steady. Double bass attacks are used sparingly and Marc always seems to know exactly how much to play, never overpowering the other band members. You won’t likely come away from this album immediately thinking, “That was some great drumming”, but you certainly won’t find it bad. Helping hold everything together is the strong production. The instruments all sound great, and Diersmann’s vocals are perfectly placed in the mix so as to accent them but not at the expense of everything else.

Highlights of the album have to include the opener, a short but rock-solid groover about nuclear war. Also, “Awakening” is another winner. Diersmann is great here, especially on the chorus (“Don’t fall asleep, Awakening…”). “Rapacious Attack” is the thrashiest song here, and probably the best. The only dud is the very short instrumental title track, a “song” which adds nothing (save about 50 seconds running time) to the album. Otherwise it’s a tremendous album full of great songs. Some of the lyrics could be better – “Browsing”, a song about the Internet and computers, is the worst offender with its pitiful lyrics – but I’ll forgive them since, well, they’re not singing in their primary language and there is actually some decent lyrical content to be found on here as well. Whether the lyrics are good or bad, however, Diersmann gives it everything he’s got on every track, almost making the lyrics in songs like “Browsing” sound convincing. Almost.

Seeing as how this was released on Century Media I cannot figure out how it flew so far beneath the radar back in 1999. This album is easily better than most of the trash CM puts out now. I guess since it wasn’t death metal or some sort of “core” garbage (metalcore) it apparently wasn’t worthy of any sort of promotion. It can still be had on eBay and from various mailorder sites (I got it from Laser CD). Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Enola Gay’s other material – I’ve searched in vain for a copy of their first two full length albums. Why Enola Gay (at least for this album) aren’t more well-known is something I’ll probably never figure out. Fans of all sorts of traditional heavy and darker power metal can buy this with confidence.