Death Metal Album Of The Week: Nocturnus – The Key

It certainly feels as if quite a few cosmic epochs have passed since we’ve last discussed the Floridian aerospace-institution Nocturnus on this cybernetic outpost, but our keenest veterans will recall that their release ‘Thresholds‘ was treated with some degree of distaste. Rummaging back further within the dustier recesses of this band’s time-capsule, though, brings to light their much more praise-worthy debut ‘The Key’– the first successful gene-spliced hybrid of both the primitive occultist and advanced technocratic schools, built upon the ridiculous yet resoundingly Death Metal concept of a cyborg assassin sent back in time to terminate the infant Christ.

Much of ‘The Key”s infamy is derived from its employment of a keyboardist: though the presence of synthesizers hardly tweaks the brow of any Hessian today, the prominent molestation of ivory on a death metal record was a controversial innovation at the time of this release. Louis Panzer’s synthwork, however, adds a vital strain of harmonic depth to these compositions, invoking phosphorescent starscapes and futurisms similar to the ambient pieces contributed by Vangelis for the film Blade Runner. The riffs themselves charge forward in their characteristically Floridian, caustic angularity, imparting a sense of frantic acceleration as of a spacecraft disintegrating into flames as it reenters a gravitational atmosphere. Still other riffs, though, express an exhilarating air of interstellar surveyance, briefly veering away from ripping brutality into the more progressive territory of science-minded speed metal in the line of Watchtower or, more explicitly, Agent Steel. It is unfortunate that this is the only Nocturnus full-length to feature Morbid Angel alumnus Mike Browning as drummer/vocalist, as his distortedly monotone snarl lends a compelling voice to the pernicious droid that presumably narrates this album; ironic, then, that he would soon give up the role of vocals to a full-time frontman who showed little talent for subtleties of characterization.

Most probably due to the polarizing effects of its synth-sodomy, ‘The Key’ tends to not be mentioned in the same breath as the usual fixtures in the classic canon of FLDM. Nonetheless, the album perdures not only for its historical incorporation of techno-astronomical imagery in death metal, but for the NASA-grade engineering ambitiously applied to its multiplexed intricacies of craft.

Pyrrhic Victories: A Brief Study Of Artistic Decline

All historical events at some stage pertain to a barrier, or a Rubicon that when crossed marks a watershed in the life cycle of an organism in which an achievement cannot be matched in terms of it’s overall qualities. In particular instances, these successes are such that what succeeds can only be a steady decline, or an outcome that pales in comparison to the glory that prevailed at a particular stage of time. This feature aims to give insight into some known examples of the ‘Pyrrhic Victory’ in the metal genre and give light to releases that represent strengths of once great acts, and at the same time foreshadowed artistic saturation.

A common thread that seems to run through these turning points in the careers of metal bands is the apparent contradiction between a musician’s personal evolution and the progress of the musical style into more authentic and expressive forms in service of the concept. We all understand that a maturing musician is not going to be satisfied with the same apparently simple techniques he mastered upon his first year of guitar practice for ages. He probably has musical heroes he is looking up to and he always wanted to learn that Eddie Van Halen or Ritchie Blackmore solo.

Vital musical forms rely on creativity, spontaneity and message over matter. It is the curse of the artist that often the best of their work is at the behest of youthful lunacy and drunken madness, the early recordings where they grasp at the straws of vision without quite having formulated the techniques for achieving them – so they improvise and as Nietzsche would say, “give birth to a dancing star“. ‘Human‘, ‘Tales from the Thousand Lakes‘ and ‘Heartwork‘ are all perfect examples of a band with the full arsenal of accumulated weapons, evolved to near its maximum potential in knowing exactly how to compose all the contemporary forms of metal, from death metal and grindcore to pop progressive, even soft rock.

But here comes the paradox. Instead of sounding updated, the recording sounds more dated every passing year, because what has happened is that the band has incorporated a plethora of archaisms to a sound that used to be cutting edge. The bludgeoning dark tremolos of ‘Leprosy‘ that used to climax in nearly atonal solos become melodious post-modernist “cut up” riff salads; the doomy Wagnerian grandeur and slow movements reminiscent of historical battles in ‘The Karelian Isthmus‘ is stealthily exchanged with stoner rock and circular meditations that happen after a couple too many smoked joints; the to-the-point socio-anatomical parody of the hilariously grotesque and twisted ‘Symphonies of Sickness‘ gets discursive and bloated with instrumental worship, as if the band suddenly turned from anarchists into voters. The core question would be: did the band think these are more sensible ways of composition and a better illustration of the topic at hand – or did they forget the composition and the topic altogether in the name of randomly generating “music” with cold technique?

Sepultura – Arise

Coming off the back of the raging, deathly speed metal of ‘Beneath The Remains‘, Sepultura stay true to the compact musical execution that began making itself clear on the ‘Schizophrenia‘ album onwards. There is more variation in pace, with the lower tempo compositions often resemblant of the riotous and anthemic cycles of of ‘Beneath The Remains’ played out in suspended animation. The introduction of the now ‘tribal’ meme that first makes itself present in Sepultura’s music introduces itself through in various songs, and whilst here it is applied in a more than tasteful enough manner it sometimes gives the idea that whilst this indicates an ‘open-mindedness’ to the average listener, on deeper insight it gives light to the possibility that the band by this time may have been starting to run short of creative ideas. Whilst this is a very good record by Sepultura, prevailing characteristics get the upper hand, and in a year where speed metal had long had it’s glory days, and death metal attaining new peaks of aggression in a period of artistic blossom, it’s no surprise looking back that the dumbed down and singularly ‘angry’ mosh-fodder that was ‘Chaos A.D.’ would suceed this work. -Pearson

Metallica – Master Of Puppets

A controversial pick, Metallica’s excellent third album fulfills the incorporation of progressive themes but seems to crystallize them to such an extent that no more creative spark would emanate from their later works. Cliff Burton’s presence in the unit, and his bridging of neo-classicist influences into their progressive speed metal was a defining feature of what many hessians and metallers saw to be the main component of their excellence. Having let this seep in on ‘Kill Em All‘ and fully realise itself on ‘Ride The Lightning‘, ‘Master Of Puppets’ steps further towards punchier and anthemic songs, with a steeping emphasis on percussive, palm-muted rhythm riffs which are the dominant motif in the album’s musical execution. This is structurally still in the exact same mould as ‘Ride The Lightining’, in that despite a different order of where songs are, we get aggression in ‘Damage Inc.’ and ‘Battery’ where there was once ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ and ‘Trapped Under Ice’. Songs such as ‘Sanitarium’ continue a rock music inclined sense of songwriting that continues what started with ‘Fade To Black’ and inevitably foreshadows the growing commercialism of Metallica on later releases. The excellence of ‘Orion’ also signals a continuity shift that began with ‘Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)’ and fulfilled itself with the ‘Call Of Ktulu’ instrumental. This is a great album that solidifies the importance of Metallica in the genre’s history, though the death of Cliff Burton and the lack of creative steam that ensued signalled the artistic decline that came in 1988 with ‘And Justice For All…’. -Pearson

Coroner – Mental Vortex

While the speed and thrash metal boom was crumbling all around in the wake of Seattle and LA-based clothing styles storming the nation, a few European stalwarts lingered on the fringes and while some of them didn’t dare to take up the arms for intricate, narrative death metal, they were influenced by its vicious aggression and psychedelic subject matter. Coroner from Zürich, around Tom G. Warrior‘s circle of the tyrants, never became a vastly recognized or influential name in extreme metal but superceded most of its peers in technicality and consistency, releasing a discography of five albums ranging from the raging “R.I.P.” to the eclectic “Grin“, where the fourth one “Mental Vortex” is where the playing abilities peak but the ultimate purpose of the band is starting to wane. When the idealism of youth fades and with it the spontaneous power of iconographic assault, the only avenue left for speed metal to challenge the moral preconceptions of hypocritical generations was to turn to psychology and explore lies and paranoia in the internal spheres, cutting up joy and sadness into fusion-esque rhythm riff salads (with the timing of an atomic clock) cut up from brilliant small pieces akin to Burroughs’ or Gysin’s style of literature. Such a hectic style provides an engaging rhythmic tension for this album, arguably one of the last triumphs of the entire genre, but it’s also cold and calculated like a scientific experiment. The vastly more popular but not much better Carcass realized essentially the same things many years later on their hit album “Heartwork” and ended up on the pages of guitar magazines, while Coroner was already entombed to the mausoleums of Noise Records’ speed metal roster. -Devamitra

Morbid Angel – Covenant

Among the most ancient, recognisable and influential cults in Death Metal’s history, Morbid Angel’s tale of decline is a prolonged one, and raised continuous questions about the band’s creative state, as though their instruments were being channelled purely at the whim of the Outer Gods. The Floridan giants finally resisted the unearthly impulses that once guided them to create powerful statements of occult awareness bound up with a Nietzschean sense of overcoming and will-to-power, such that with the releases of ‘Gateways of Annihilation’ and ‘Heretic’, the band fell victim to triviality. Incremental lapses in quality can be traced back to much earlier albums however, with the departure of guitarist Richard Brunelle being the first to impact the legendary line-up responsible for two of the finest Metal albums ever recorded, meaning that ‘Covenant’ would initiate the band’s slow decay. In addition, Morbid Angel’s growing populist tendencies were perhaps never more commercially viable than at this time, with the production left in the hands of Fleming Rasmussen, and not one but two music videos filmed to promote the album. Brunelle’s exit would mean that Trey Azagthoth would be fully responsible for filling the suffocating mix with his trademarked guitarwork, to the surprising detriment of ‘Covenant’s sound wherever the album’s conceptual direction becomes overwhelmed by a one-dimensional bluntness. Characterised by unfocused and uniform phrasing and only held in place by Pete Sandoval’s tightly militaristic drumming, the latter half of the album demonstrates little of the dynamism that could be heard on every one of their preceeding songs. The spiritual inversion of Morbid Angel, a transvaluation of religious language to re-vitalise and Paganise the path of transcendence and condemn the submissive and world-denying, corrupt parasites turns into an unaltering, blind rage that’s summarised by the lyric of ‘God of Emptiness‘, “So, what makes you supreme?”, setting a blueprint for the band to follow on ‘Domination‘ and the hordes of imitators that were given an undeserved license to record by virtue of Death Metal’s growing popularity. ‘Covenant’ in this sense is not dissimilar to Deicide’s Pyrrhic fall from the adept demonology of ‘Legion‘ to the dumbed-down ‘Once Upon the Cross‘, though Azagthoth’s wizardry would earn Morbid Angel some redemption with the primordial dance of cosmic energies to be heard on ‘Formulas Fatal to the Flesh‘ before finally digging their own grave without cursing their own reputation quite as badly as the truly shattered idols from the golden age of Death Metal. -ObscuraHessian

Death Metal Album of the Week: Death – Spiritual Healing

In the opinion of the reviewer, this album represents the best of the earlier Death albums. 1987′s ‘Scream Bloody Gore‘ was a memorable, charmed album that contributed heavily to popularising the evolving death metal style, though lacked the momentum of originators Possessed and the subversion of Autopsy (a band on whom said album’s drummer, Chris Reifert, was the founder). ‘Leprosy’, released the following year was a more solid, cohesive and melodic affair that anticipated the melodic and compositional approaches of much European (namely Swedish) death metal. With the turn of a new decade, and the replacement of Rick Rozz (Massacre) with James Murphy (Obituary) as Chuck Schuldiner’s fellow axeman, we see the most unique twist yet on their changing formula.

Sticking to their formats of mid-paced songs, the execution of riffs here are more spread out and less even, one could say ‘broken down’ in a manner that would not be too unfamiliar with the likes of the first two Obituary albums, but comes across like a technical version of Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, blending in and comfortably acquainting itself with the knack for melodic progressions first hinted at on ‘Leprosy’. Murphy’s guitar playing is inseparable from his leadwork on the ‘Cause Of Death’ album by fellow Floridians Obituary, quite flashy, clean and tasteful, working beautifully over the juxtaposition of riff dynamics that simultaneously tread primitivism and sophistication. Bill Andrew’s drumming, whilst not distinct, is particularly good and makes excellent use of rhythmic structure and syncopation, making it’s technicalities much clearer with slower tempos. Terry Butler completes the rhythm section, with his basslines complimenting and adhering with rhythm guitar.

Lyrical concepts shift from the gory metaphors that permeate death metal and take on a more topical, societal outlook, not as politically charged as Master but having a cynical and semi-psychological outlook, in what is probably the strongest and wisest Death would be, conceptually speaking.

“Life for a life should remain the rule
The innocent victim, that is what’s cruel
Look to the past is what we should do
When justice was done and justice was true.”

Perhaps overhyped by some quarters of metal communities and being often miscredited with ‘inventing’ death metal in addition, the ‘Spiritual Healing’ album serves as an excellent syncretism of death metal’s atavistic origins with a more highly advanced sense of execution and structure.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Hellwitch – Syzygial Miscreancy

Do you want the perpendicular magic of obscure Floridian scientific death metal to take you into an extinguished state of bliss? Do you desire opaque fusion rhythms to altercate with your heartbeat causing it to skip steps? Do you dare forsake brutal mosh party antics in order to proceed to a mentally intricate level of personal and musical analysis? An affected bit of text there, I know, but it is impossible to avoid when commencing another run of Pat Ranieri‘s merely 26 minutes long meisterwerk, after half a minute of classical guitar intro cutting the crap and going for the throat with the initial solo in “Nosferatu”, a technical thrash abomination conceived in 1984. With such timeless expression, age hardly matters, but it’s worth mentioning because these guys were both thematically and musically far ahead Cynic‘s and Death‘s new age postures and theoretically just might have predated Atheist as well, who anyway beat them by a year in debut album release. Hellwitch‘s banquet table of speed metal, thrash and death metal can justifiedly be called non-organized, but that is exactly because the band shows no mercy in letting loose a sensual storm of associative significance, a swarm of noises including ridiculously angular solos and voices manipulated into cyborgian declarations. Despite the abstaining running time, a notable richness of taste and fullness of effort permeates this album, from the Renaissance touches in “Mordirivial Dissemination” to the speedcore foreshadowing of Deicide’s “Legion” which characterizes “Pyrophoric Seizure”. Thrash influence dominates in the use of short riffs and sparse punk influenced tremolos underneath elaborate and abstracted solos as in the tightly minimalistic spouting of syllables in lyrics that can hardly be called trivial even while there is an unjustified use of thesaurus; a frightening urgency of seeing a world falling into an apocalypse with the promise of demonic saviours permeates the text, gripping the heart of those not lured into false optimism by the pact society has instated upon an instinctively barbaric man. “Syzygial Miscreancy” manages to be metal from the mind of a zen priest and the mind of a panicking computer all at once – it hardly surprises that Antti Boman of Demilich has paid them tribute by guesting on their 2009 comeback album, which probably should be gotten under scrutiny somewhere in the future, before we all get blown by one catastrophe or another into this primordial plasma described (especially through Stravinskyian guitar work) by Hellwitch.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Atheist – Unquestionable Presence

It would have taken a mad Nostradamus to predict in 1984 that the sprouts that grew from Hellhammer‘s and Possessed‘s gory and satanic fantasies would in barely half a decade bear fruits in bridging the arts of dark metal and effulgent progressive rock, even jazz, with a virulence unheard of. While Morbid Angel and Death were building Florida’s reputation for fiendish blasphemy, two bands specifically attended to the science of philosophy and the phenomenological realm of the mind. One was the thrashier Hellwitch, the other was the name to be synonymous with jazz influenced death metal; Atheist. Technical, baffling and impossible to headbang, despite their oddities the band easily captured the attention of open-minded metalheads bored of pop metal and hundreds of Slayer clones.

How did Atheist do it? While fans may argue for the technical aggression of “Piece of Time”, I find this album to be the key to the band’s unbounded ability to use syncopated percussive enthrallment, mathematical measures, subtle disharmony and a perfect understanding of tonality to show every formal musicologist that death metal is up there with other advanced musics of humankind. As the opening track “Mother Man” engulfs the listener to its helical and hypnotic guitar melody, Tony Choy, borrowed from Cynic to replace the tragically deceased fretless bass master Roger Patterson, unlocks the fluttering dormant quality of his instrument from the robust, minimal traditions of Geezer Butler and other heavy metal bassists. By the time we join “The Incarnation’s Dream”, it’s quite hard to recall we were supposed to be listening to death metal, as the eerie acoustic bliss takes us beyond Metallica’s “Orion” to what is the wildest dreams of symphonic rock á la Yes come life through the hands and mouths of irreverent Florida dropouts. Mental revelations induced by New Age literature and TV documentaries on UFOs and mysteries of the universe, or musical heirship to German classical idealist philosophy?

Death Metal Album of the Week: Wicked Innocence – Omnipotence

Following the course of American Death Metal through the early to mid-nineties shows the beginnings of a noteable schism in how bands approached Death Metal composition. As a new wave of fans became immersed in this extreme music, exposed via. mainstream outlets such as MTV and Music for Nations, the underground ethos of pure artistry became sacrificed to some degree, to reflect this broader audience. On one hand, there were bands like Cannibal Corpse, Deicide and Obituary dumbing down the music and setting a tradition of thoughtless extremity for musicians to pursue until this surrogate activity became formalised under titles like ‘Brutal Death Metal’ (also latching onto the furthest extremes of rhythmic Death Metal to that point – Suffocation, and the simplicity of Grindcore technique). On the other hand, an obviously smaller number of bands went in an opposite direction, inspired by the Jazz-infused music of Atheist and Death’s ‘Human‘, to create varieties of technical and progressive Death Metal. Whichever the case and whatever the quality of any individual example of music that sits within this timeframe, it’s obvious that there was somewhat of a spiritual decline in American Death Metal at this point.

To find this week’s prized album will then require us to venture away from the centres of Florida and the northern tri-states of America, and instead to Mid-Western Utah’s capital of Salt Lake City, famous for its infestation of polygamous Mormons. Here we find a band who were pretty much loners in that continent’s extreme music scene, but seemingly not placed there without a purpose. Their equidistant view of both scenes lead Wicked Innocence to create an album that, though sounding firmly in the camp of mid-nineties Brutal Death Metal, has a very progressive edge with lyrics that are closer to the cosmic existentialism of Cynic or Atheist. ‘Omnipotence’ gets rolling with a barrage typical of the aforementioned north-eastern, essentially, purely rhythmic style of Death Metal, but this music has very little in common with the tedious likes of Dying Fetus and Dehumanized, and gradually more and more progressive tendencies and flourishes of Floridan musicality creep into the album to leave an impression of something quite unique and stimulating.

Even on the level of rhythm, a direction is established within micro-rhythmic units of those riffs and sent spiralling into disarray with a Grindcore fervour for destruction. These kaleidoscopic patterns are hyper-extended into heavier chunks of guitarwork which get disintegrated further in another grinding sequence of powerchords that resembles a frustrated echo bouncing within the walls of some symbolic cube, floating meaninglessly in deep space. The melodies that tear out of this method resemble a less occult Incantation or Infester but are imbued with all of their insanities. Shades of Revenant appear in the shredding of more melodic riffs, whereby the rhythmical aspect is suspended above the beat, causing a profound sensation of impending death. As the album progresses, the melodic/rhythmic interplay becomes more integral to the sense of deconstructionism that the music conveys, revealing ever broader contexts of consciousness, like a reversed Hegelian dialectic. Bass guitar is extremely competent in underscoring this growing expanse of nothingness, similar in role to Cynic on their legendary demo, without being very discernably Jazzy. The drumming is reasonably technical as should be expected from any band that can trace their origins back to Suffocation, which the vocalist acknowledges with some amusing performances that are spewed out from an intestinal level of depth. Clearly, ‘Omnipotence’ was a timely release, before this intricate mesh of popular styles would be undermined by another generation of bands who randomly throw ideas together for no purpose at all.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Monstrosity – Imperial Doom

Stylistically bonding the progressive riffcraft of Morbid Angel and the percussive intensity of Suffocation, Monstrosity craft a monument that hybridizes the ‘foundational’  death metal that came out of their native Florida and the ‘brutal’ take on the substyle that was making itself known in New York. Whirling power chord and tremolo led riffs not unlike ‘Altars Of Madness’ come face to face with the progressive, grindcore informed drumming that was a centerpiece of ‘Effigy Of The Forgotten’, whilst George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher’s intense, hoarse vocal delivery and Mark Van Erp’s bass playing have all the passion and savagery of a more mid-paced ‘Legion’. An essential piece of work, being a summation and hybrid of the foundational styles of American death metal. Any listener worth their salt should bow in admiration to this opus.

Blessed are the Tales of the Sick

Many reissues of underground Metal CDs, especially onto the digipack format of packaging, have removed much of the experience of being immersed in the total artistic presentation that was part and parcel of the infernal sounds it contained on the disc. This is seemingly symptomatic of casual, background, mp3 listening, which feigns a disregard of anything external to the music itself, while at the same time a reduction of whatever’s being heard, to exactly that: ornament. There’s something to be said about the honest ritualism of setting time and space aside in this multi-tasking age of lifestreams and other such convergences of different faced distractions, in order to access deeper and darker worlds. Interesting cover art and a booklet complete with lyrics and liner notes all aid to this end.  Peaceville records reissued a large selection of their early 90′s back catalogue several years ago, with some classic albums missing lyrics or important liner notes. Roadrunner records’ budget ‘Two from the Vault’ series were even less impressive, with their dual-offering reducing the content that once accompanied each album to something of infomercial ‘Best of Country Music’ standards. Peaceville, to their credit, did include some interesting bonus material on their digipacked CDs of the first four Darkthrone albums. This was a series of interviews conducted by the Black Metallers themselves, reflecting on the circumstances surrounding each album.

The reissue we’re concerned with has captured the best of both worlds, heeding the traditional benefit of drawing a listener into the experience of the album with detailed and faithfully imported contents, as well as providing bonus material in the form of a full-length documentary about the Death Metal classic that is Morbid Angel’s ‘Blessed are the Sick’. This commemoration of the great work features a fold-out design that replaces the pages of a booklet with new and old artwork appearing more vibrantly than it would on glossy paper. Delville’s depiction especially, of Satan ensnaring fallen humanity, has not looked more powerful on any previous pressing. Demanding almost childlike interactivity, the digipack is an enjoyable format to get lost in Vincent’s amoral and blasphemous sermons more so than in-sleeve booklets. Full liner notes are included, and like those of the previous album, they intimately reveal more about the intentions and the attitude of these artists, even dedicating the entire work to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

One unavoidable sacrifice to the presentation is the lack of art or logo on the CD itself, because it’s not technically a CD, but a dual-layered CD/DVD. This brings us to ‘Tales of the Sick’, an hour-length documentary about the making of the album, the subsequent touring of the new tracks and its lasting legacy. Conversations with Morbid Angel are limited to insights from David Vincent, whose articulation isn’t quite enough to compensate for the lack of ‘Blessed are the Sick’s lead song-writer and sonic shaman, Trey Azagthoth. And although he doesn’t quite resemble the same blonde-haired Hessian that upheld the Nietzschean spirit of Death Metal since it’s golden age, Vincent provides an interesting commentary on why the album sounds like it does and the obstacles the band faced to achieve this sound. Further to Azagthoth’s tribute in the liner notes, Vincent goes on to describe ‘Blessed are the Sick’ as an attempt to approach Mozart’s compositional style through the lens of Death Metal. Tom Morris of the reknowned Morrissound studios reveals the more technical challenges in engineering one of the most astoundingly crisp and clear sounding Death Metal albums, despite its speed and complexity. Other interviews feature the following generation of Death Metal musicians such as Nile’s Karl Sanders, and a lot of memories from the tours are shared by former managers and sound technicians. As an additional bonus, Earache have included the official music video for ‘Blessed are the Sick/Leading the Rats’, though in it’s original 4:3 aspect ratio. This is a great supplement to an highly influential album, and any real fan of Morbid Angel would do well to add this reissue to their collection.

Dark Legions Archive review

Obituary – The End Complete

It’s nearly impossible to assess the value of this album without first referencing the classic that preceded it. Despite the almost riskily simplistic style of ‘Cause of Death’, it still remains an undisputed and unmatchedly brutal Death Metal monster. Little had changed since then with the release of ‘The End Complete’ and yet something essential was missing. No, not the haunting, melodic appeal of James Murphy’s lead guitars. Something slightly less tangible, but is terribly apparent when listening to the album. All the components of a quality Obituary album are there, because they are basic enough to reproduce over and over again (how they failed at doing even this with their following albums is a great mystery) but where the magic has gone seems to be due to it’s misplaced sense of rhythm. Obituary were essentially beginning to streamline (read: commodify) their sound, so that none of the parts related to the themes, that of disease, dying and death. Where this was most apparent was in the rhythmic dimension, which just grooved and nothing more. It was catchy but it still sounded like Death Metal to the less discerning of ears, and so it sold more than the average Death Metal album at the time. Although it plays innocent, blame this album for every crime the band has commited since.

Cynic – 1991 Demo

There is no denying the magnitude of Cynic as a historical phenomenon, as last year’s release of their comeback album has reminded us. 1993′s ‘Focus’, of which ‘Traced In Air’ is an approximate, contemporary rehash, was viewed by many as a revolutionary and progressive work that took Metal beyond its confines into a more liberal musical world. Others were suspicious of this sound. For them it was an attack on the vital, hard-hitting spirit of underground Metal – an outward promise of endless bliss if one renounces the sword and chants peaceful mantras; inwardly possessing characteristics of the herd. For the cynical, then, the 1991 demo recording may be a more palatable listen. It is what ‘Focus’ and Death’s ‘Human’ should have been conclusions to. Two songs from the full-length to follow and one exclusive to the demo (although parts were included in the album) are, rather than stripped down versions in the stages of infancy, more mature compositions than what would later be heard. The sound is technical and precise but the demo-quality rawness and vibrancy of musicianship illuminates the composition as it unfolds. There is a constant, cosmic sense of drama in the music, describing the world of flux in relation to unconditioned reality. Abrupt riff and tempo changes have a more satisfying and lasting effect, being underlined by subtle rhythmic patterns. This creates a layered dynamic culminating in moments of realisation which are characterised by lead guitar work that is, at better times, more adherent and logically conclusive than later works. The work of the guitars here is closer to Classical music, vaguely reminiscent of Robert Schumann and the up-tempo passages of his earlier symphonies in particular. There are no vocoded vocals on the demo; aggresive and restless open-throated growls typical of later Speed Metal bands make this recording truer to the original canon of Cynic’s career. Tony Choy’s masterful bass adds a skeletal and complex level of structural depth to the sound that Reinert’s percussion drives into light-speed, rendering Zeno’s paradox of motion. Cynic’s 1991 demo is a technical Death Metal masterpiece – perhaps only surpassed by Atheist’s unquestionably classic second album. It still challenges the conventions of Death Metal, but it bears the hallmarks that all great underground recordings possess, as an honest and brutally direct communication of the reality beyond our futile ways.