...SIŁA I PIĘKNO MUZYKI TKWIĄ W JEJ RÓŻNORODNOŚCI...


..::OPIS::..

44 lata działalności, 9 albumów i wierna rzesza fanów. Niemiecki Paradox to dobrze znana marka wśród maniaków speed/thrash metalu z domieszką power metalu. Na swoim koncie mają kilka znakomitych płyt, takich jak Heresy czy Pangea. Teraz Charly Steinhauer powraca z nowym krążkiem zatytułowanym Mysterium, którego premiera zaplanowana jest na 26 września 2025 roku nakładem High Roller Records.

Choć niegdyś Paradox był pełnoprawnym zespołem, dziś to właściwie jednoosobowy projekt – za wszystko odpowiada Steinhauer. Trudno jednak mówić tu o jakimkolwiek problemie, ponieważ Charly to muzyk wszechstronny i utalentowany. Na Mysterium serwuje słuchaczom charyzmatyczne partie wokalne, ciekawe melodie i wyraziste motywy gitarowe, dzięki czemu naprawdę nie ma powodów do narzekań.

Pod względem jakości to zdecydowanie krok naprzód w porównaniu z Heresy II – śmiało można stwierdzić, że to jeden z najlepszych albumów w dorobku Paradox. Na wyróżnienie zasługuje również klimatyczna okładka oraz potężne, selektywne brzmienie, które dodaje całemu materiałowi siły i wyrazistości. Sama grafika idealnie wpisuje się w estetykę zespołu, ale jak zawsze – najważniejsza jest muzyka.

Album zawiera 11 utworów. Już otwierający go, rozpędzony "Kholat", pokazuje geniusz Charliego – agresywny riff, szybkie tempo i bezkompromisowa energia czynią z niego jeden z najmocniejszych punktów płyty. Taki Paradox uwielbiamy!

Kolejny mocny akcent to rozbudowany, pełen nieoczywistych rozwiązań "Abyss of Pain and Fear" – siedem minut doskonale wyważonej mieszanki thrashu i power metalu, które mijają w mgnieniu oka.

Dalej robi się jeszcze ciekawiej – progresywny i zróżnicowany "Those Who Resist", brutalny "One Way Ticket to Die", który doskonale oddaje ducha niemieckiego thrashu, czy kolejny energetyczny cios – "Fragrance of Violence" – to numery, które aż kipią od metalowej pasji i technicznej precyzji.

Tytułowy "Mysterium" wyróżnia się atmosferą i kompozycyjną finezją, a "The Demon God" to kolejna bezlitosna thrashowa petarda, która nie pozostawia miejsca na wytchnienie.

Całość wieńczy melodyjny, pełen detali "Within the Realms of Grey" – doskonałe zakończenie intensywnej, przemyślanej podróży przez świat Paradox.

Zespół – a właściwie Charly Steinhauer – powraca w wielkim stylu z albumem godnym swojej legendy. Mysterium to potężna dawka thrashu, podlana heavy/power metalowym sosem, pełna znakomitych kompozycji i muzycznego ognia. Bez wątpienia jedna z najciekawszych płyt w ich dorobku – warto czekać na premierę!

PMW


This album is dedicated to Axel Blaha (1964-2023), co-founder of PARADOX (R.I.P.)

“Mysterium” is the ninth studio album by German thrash metal institution Paradox and marks a special milestone in the band’s 44-year history, as founder and mastermind Charly Steinhauer not only played all the instruments and sang, but also handled the production entirely on his own.
“I'm capable of it,” he explains. “Everything you hear on the album, I played. I programmed the drums, but it sounds like a real drummer played them at the highest level. I worked on it day and night until everything was perfect.” Only the mastering was left to Patrick W. Engels competent hands.
The songs on “Mysterium” are thematically linked, without it being a classic concept work. The lyrics – which, as on ‘Tales of the Weird’ (2012) and ‘Pangea’ (2016), were written by Achim “Dax” Hömerlein (ex-Vendetta) – revolve around mystical stories and world events that have personally moved Steinhauer. Songs like ‘Abyss of Pain and Fear’ (inspired by the movie “Midnight Express”), the instrumental ‘Grief’ (a tribute to co-founder Axel Blaha, who died in 2023) or the title track (about dream interpretation) thus form a common thread.
The cover art, created by Travis Smith (Opeth Death, et al.), picks up on the theme of the title track and shows a sleepwalking woman. “I didn’t want any skulls or other clichéd things,” says Steinhauer. “It’s more reminiscent of a horror film.” In his own estimation, “Mysterium” is the strongest Paradox album to date: “It became my favourite alongside ‘Heresy’ from 1989. The songs all have their own identity, are catchy, and when the album is over, I want to listen to it again straight away.”
The bandleader does not rule out concerts for “Mysterium”, but his focus remains on studio productions. In fact, he is already thinking about a follow-up album. “I’m a fan of music myself, and CDs or LPs are what I remember, of course in connection with some of the concerts I’ve attended. That is why I need new music, also from myself. And eventually, I want to not have released one single album that has been poorly rated.”



Though the idea of any thrash-adjacent musical affair, even of the more progressive persuasion, having a mysterious bent to it seems extremely counterintuitive; the best way to understand the more than 40 years running Teutonic machine that is Paradox is enigmatic. Not so much in the sense that the music offered up under said moniker defies all convention, but definitely in that it sits almost perfectly in that stylistic no man's land that lies between melodic, progressive and extreme metal; committing to none of them completely yet showing clear tendencies towards the thrashing side of the equation. When considering the mixed approach of fellow German contemporaries like Iron Angel and Angel Dust, one can easily see a heavy bent towards the upcoming shift towards the power metal wave ushered in by Helloween's Keeper Of The Seven Keys albums, but even the old time power thrashing majesty of 1987's Product Of Imagination was of a different persuasion that maybe carried a few hints of the more melodic strain of metal that was afoot, but was gunning for something darker and more nuanced. The subsequent pivots to a more thrash-infused sonic paradigm on 1989's Heresy and their 2000s post-reunion would see this tendency become more pronounced, though even by the dawn of the 2020s it would continue to allot for a melodic character that remained atypical in relation to the rest of the thrash scene and in line with where things began for them in the mid-80s.

In relation to an extensive career now spanning 10 albums when including the unearthing of the lost 3rd album Rearrange The Past the previous year, 2025's Mysterium offers few in the way of changes apart from band founder guitarist/vocalist Charly Steinhauer effectively morphing Paradox into a one-man outfit. The drawn out blends of neck-destroying speed/thrash riff assaults and dreary atmospheric introductory and go-between segments that has typified its modus operandi since 2000's Collision Course remain firmly in place, dogged by technically-charged lead breaks (now being handled exclusively by Steinhauer) and an almost earworm approach to chorus hooks that is uncommon to the lion's share of thrash outfits, be they Teutonic or otherwise. The use of a drum machine in the face of the untimely passing of drummer and co-founder Alex Blaha feels strangely appropriate given that the moribund character of the album's music and recurring theme of death and suffering suggests that his ghost endures amid the frenzy of rapid-fire beats, and ultimately comes off as organic despite being 100% synthetic. From the dense arrangements and elaborate sectional transitions to Charly's gruffy yet tuneful vocal attack, the whole thing just works as a cohesive outfit that listens more like a full band than a lone wolf emulating one in the studio.

Compared to the gargantuan fit of conceptual storytelling that was 2021's Heresy II: End Of A Legend, this is Paradox's version of getting back to basics, which means an album that is still loaded with detailing at the periphery, but comparatively more focused on biting thrashers delivered with reckless abandon. Though clocking in at over 6 minutes and frontloaded with an extended atmospheric exposition that paints the same misty forest landscape with sound that adorns the cover, the opening foray "Kholat" slams the pedal to the proverbial metal like best of the 80s Bay Area just landed in Bavaria. A similar story with more technical bells and whistles emerges in the high octane crusher "Abyss Of Pain And Fear", laying down the speed-thrashing mayhem like it's going out of style and landing one of the most brilliantly realized breakdown segments before Steinhauer lights up his fret board with a truly spellbinding guitar solo cacophony. Among the other blazing speeders to break the sound barrier while clocking in a tad shorter include "One Way Ticket To Die" and "Fragrance Of Violence", with Charly's signature vertabrae-destroying riff work continually ruling the roost and occasionally making way for eclectic contrast points of a softer persuasion.

Granted, Paradox has never lived by pit-exploding thrash alone, and alongside the Bay Area-inspired carnage with a tall side order of genre-defying interludes is a healthy share of more nuanced sonic material. Curiously enough, one of the more restrained feats of progressive metallic thunder follows a brief instrumental exposition that sees Steinhauer flexing his classical guitar chops on "Grief", though the subsequent speed metal fest "Those Who Resist" is about as aggressively charged as most of the previously noted thrashers, after an extended build up from its melodic intro, that is. On the other hand, the more mid-paced power thrasher of a title entry "Mysterium" opts for a brief atmospheric intro before laying on the percussive riffage, and even then one can't help but note that the vocal hooks drive the song and the most impactful moment is the ultra-infectious chorus section, accompanied by a melancholy acoustic line to go with the layering of distorted chords. Towards the end of the album the tried and true tendency of cooking at full speed and asking questions later resumes, yet the massive 7 minute slay fest "The Demon God" proves masterful at finding plenty of contrasting means of pummeling the airwaves to justify its length. The closing hurrah "Within The Realms Of Gray" leaves things with a jarring twist, opting for one of the most mixed up blends of melodic splendor, crushing riff work and progressive shifts in feel and atmosphere to ever occur in the subgenre outside of Jeff Waters' more outlandish musings.

There was just about nowhere to go but down following the colossal achievement that was Heresy II: End Of A Legend, but there are also few other ways to have taken an ever so slight and respectable step down into almost equally compelling territory as was accomplished with Mysterium. Considering the circumstance surrounding it, this album could arguably be seen as the project's greatest triumph in spite of being more towards the middle tier of an extremely impressive catalog, and it must be stressed that Paradox's version of middle tier is still a cut above most. In spite of an ongoing upswing of activity in the underground thrash metal world, this is a sound that has little difficulty standing out from the legions of revivalist acts that are still cropping up like weeds from South America to Asia, and proves that staying in one's comfort zone doesn't necessarily mean ceasing to be inventive and that the stiffest competition is usually against one's own past accomplishments. It's a bittersweet sendoff to an old friend and consequential contributor to the metal world, but it's also the sort of album that is explosive enough to send any thrash fanatic into a moshing rage while giving the power and progressive enthusiasts something to talk about.

hells unicorn



..::TRACK-LIST::..

1. Kholat 06:05
2. Abyss of Pain and Fear 07:28
3. Grief 01:13
4. Those Who Resist 05:49
5. One-way Ticket to Die 05:12
6. Pile of Shame 05:00
7. Tunguska 01:17
8. Fragrance of Violence 05:38
9. Mysterium 06:30
10. The Demon God 07:06

Bonus Track:
11. Within the Realms of Gray 6:11



..::OBSADA::..

Charly Steinhauer - Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Drum programming, Songwriting



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw7KaA6RxjQ


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