From: "greg orlandini"
>Can anyone comment on the style and quality of DEUS EX MACHINA
and their four CD releases: SELF-TITLED, GLADIUM CAELI, DE REPUBLICA,
DIACRONIE METRONOMICHE
they are a great band. i have de republica. hard edge dark at some
times. violin and some nice acoustic electric interplay. the vocals sore
a bit over the top and song in
Latin. they have a crimson red era influence to them. well
worth it.
From: "Richard Stockwell"
As I said in my review (Cranium Music catalog) you'll either marvel at
the singer's vocal gymnastics or you'll want to take a mallet to the CD. The
music is grand, heavy, light, lots of classical influence's, chord changes
that take the music from mellow to heavy, and yes certainly some "Red" era
Crimson influence in the instrument section. Start with De Republica first
and if that mallet doesn't come out then venture further.
From: Mike De Lang <>
The album is De Republica by Deus Ex Machina and It's Killer. Along with
Finesterre and A Piedi Nudi, they are my favorite of the newer Italian bands.
Their music reminds me a lot of Area especially the vocals, although He's
singing in Latin. As far as foreign language goes, it makes the music all the
more interesting for me. A lot of bands sound so much better in their native
tongue rather than English.
From: Christopher Robbin <>
Someone commented on singing the vocals in DEM's music being in Latin and how
they may have intended the vocals to be just another part of the instrumental
mix, since NOBODY speaks Latin, as such. I find this an interesting
statement, as this is one of the things I like about bands like Le Orme,
Magma, and other bands I've heard that don't sing in English. Since I don't
speak any other language, the meaning of the words don't get to me, and I
therefore hear the vocals as just another instrument. For me, Le Orme's
music, for instance, is just instrumental music with vocals, if you will
(well, except for my vinyl copy of Sorona and Felona, which has the English
lyrics). As for the meaning of Deux Ex Machina, I understand that it relates
to a certain style of plot device in drama. I remember someone explaining it
to me fairly recently, relating to a plot of an episode of a TV show (might
have been Babylon 5). I think it has something to do with resolving a
"unresolved" plot line by using some kind of devine intervention (eg a person
jumps off a bridge, but some an angel catches him or something like that), or
some such. I'm not sure about that, though.
From: "Andrew J. Rozsa" <>
Actually, the term refers to the solution in the many Greek tragedies
starting around the 6th century B.C.... In ancient Greek and Roman plays the
hero would sometimes be placed into an impossible situation where he was
surrounded by thousands of bad guys with spears and arrows and no means of
escape. When all was about lost, suddenly a crane would move from behind the
set and lower the hand of god to whisk the hero away to safety. This clever
ploy was referred to then as "deus ex machina" translating to "the god from
the machine"?. Today, this term is interpreted as being a contrived solution
to an apparently insoluble difficulty. Some of modern movies used similar
solutions to incredibly complicated plots in which the hero finds himself in
a deadly situation, only to be rescued my some (contrived) magical and
improbable solution. We, in modern English, use the expression "cheating the
grim Reaper" as an equivalent. It is interesting (to me) how the phrase/term
is being used in games and the computer industry. It would be equally
interesting to me to learn how DEM chose the name for their band. I shudder
at the philosophical (if any) implications how many so-called mainstream
bands DO pick their names..... Before this gets too boring I will leave y'all
with an intriguing, if stretched, connection to e-Prog: "Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clarke