December 2024 Feature Release - The Infinite Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month's feature release for The Infinite, nominated by me (Shadowdoom9 (Andi)), is the 1991 sophomore album by Florida-based progressive metal/tech-death forerunners Atheist, Unquestionable Presence. With this landmark in the progressive/death metal realms, this extreme progressive blend is combined with jazz/Latin aspects in a way that barely any other bands had done before at the time. A grand album to add to discussion!

https://metal.academy/releases/349

Here's my review summary:

Atheist is a special band to appear in the early 90s. Together with Cynic, they shook the harsh death metal world by jazzing it up with jazz elements. And what an amazing perfect product this band has created! Atheist had their own unique writing going on. Bassist Roger Patterson wrote the bass lines for the guitars to be structured upon for a different unconventional interplay. Sadly, he's gone, after a vehicular accident. RIP... Helping out the band is the massive delivery of Tony Choy. We also have the mighty guitar skills of Rand Burkey and Kelly Shaefer, the latter providing clean yet aggressive vocals reminiscent of the later Death albums. And who would forget Steve Flynn's perfectly pattern-less drumming variety? The band have a lot of metal riffing fury in their arsenal to go with the jazzy bass. The rhythmic twists will blow your mind alongside the epic melody and desperate speed. This band has clearly established the jazzy progressive tech-death that was first hinted in Piece of Time and fully formed in Unquestionable Presence. One of the most influential classics in the progressive/death metal realms!

5/5

Recommended tracks: "Mother Man", "Unquestionable Presence", "Enthralled in Essence", "An Incarnation's Dream", "Brains"

For fans of: Cynic's Focus, 90s-era Death, Sadist

When I started upping my death metal consumption in order to expand my knowledge of the genre and pave the way for acceptance into The Horde a couple of years ago, along with Death, Atheist jumped out at me with regards to the tech-death sub-genre of which I had previously been wary (and still am to some degree). "Unquestionable Presence" is one of my absolute favourite metal albums, not just tech-death or even just death metal, but metal as a whole. Anyway, here is my review:

As I have iterated before on many occasions, I am not a fan of technical death metal (or tech-thrash either for that matter) but my experiences with Atheist have been nothing but incredibly positive. The reason for this, I think, is that these guys don't make the technicalities of their music the be all and end all, but rather they make the jazz elements and their technical expertise work to enhance the high quality death metal that they produce. I mean, these guys produce absolute killer riffs, some of which still contain a deal of thrashiness, such as the main riff on the title track, or on The Formative Years, and that is what I want to hear when I listen to a death metal album - riffs, riffs and more riffs... oh and a certain degree of brutality, another aspect of their sound that is well and truly taken care of. So with that aspect of their songwriting sorted they then give themselves license to enhance and elaborate upon their ideas with jazz-influenced sections, multifarious time changes and displays of technical skill a great deal of their contemporaries could only marvel at, I suspect.

The drumming and basswork are superb and sound fantastic, Tony Choy's bass playing in particular is impressive as he weaves his basslines in and out of the sound, at times in step with drummer Steve Flynn like conjoined twins, such as during the technical sections of An Incarnation's Dream where the two combine to weave musical magic. Kelly Shaefer has a pretty mean death growl, not so deep and rumbling as some, but with a nice vicious snarl to it. Shaefer and Rand Burkey also turn in some mean solos that howl and squeal nicely but, man, I just can't get over them riffs.

At a mere 33 minutes this may appear to be quite a slight album, but Atheist just pack so much into it that it is more than enough to sate the appetite. In fact I would argue that knowing when to stop is also a lost art amongst too many modern metal acts who insist on issuing bloated hour-plus efforts that can oftimes test the patience and I, for one, would much rather have half an hour of this level of quality. So, first and foremost, Unquestionable Presence is a top-drawer death metal album with enough brutal-sounding riffs to stop a charging rhino, but Atheist held ambition enough not to be satisfied with "just" that, they further employed their technical prowess and songwriting skill to push the boundaries of what death metal could be and can justifiably be considered one of the seminal bands (along with Chuck Schuldiner's Death) of the technical death movement. I'm just not sure if the later acolytes of Atheist always concentrated on writing brilliant death metal songs first and foremost like the massively impressive Floridians did, so for me, this is one of the absolute premier tech-death albums and, despite my reticence regarding tech-death generally, I could listen to this all day long.

5/5

Nice review Sonny. I've always been a big fan of Atheist's first couple of records with this one being the obvious career highlight & their only genuine classic in my opinion. I will say though that I've never considered Atheist's sophomore album to be a technical death metal record. The riff structures aren't gratuitously technical as they used their chops in a far more tasteful & creative way. Atheist certainly weren't a red-blooded death metal act either so I've always considered "Unquestionable Presence" to be a progressive death/thrash release personally, despite what the metal media wanted me to believe.

It's a wonderful 4.5/5 rating from me although I won't be returning to the album for a full review this month given that I've listened to it like a gazillion times over the last 33 years. The production is the album's Achilles Heal & I've always wondered what heights it might have reached with a more accomplished studio sound.

As you know, Daniel, I am a relatively new acolyte of The Horde and I don't have enough long-term, in-depth knowledge of the genre to confidently negotiate the dividing lines between the different sub-genres, so I tend to stick with the consensus as far as tagging goes. Your unwillingness to tag Unquestionable Presence as tech-death may well explain why it appeals to me so much, when I struggle with most technical metal, especially technical death metal. I am much more well-disposed to progressive death metal, however and am more than happy to go along with a prog-death tag.

What's wrong with the production? Because I've never really considered anything wrong with that.

I'm not saying that it's horrible or anything but that sort of album could have done with a cleaner, glossier sound with thicker rhythm guitars. It's just a bit raw for that style of expansive metal.

I blame Atheist for giving me such high expectations for tech death metal. While there are many good tech death bands, few can match what this album accomplishes; and none can match the elegant simplicity of the intro to Mother Man. In ten seconds we get the bass leading, then a surprisingly simple guitar riff, and finally the focus is on the drums. Each part in harmony, creating a whole that is much more than it seems. It's rare an album that can show exactly how well it works in it's opening notes.
It's not that there isn't anywhere else for the genre to go after hearing this album, it's just that it's hard for anyone to come up with something that doesn't sound worse. Each factor that goes into making a song good, does here. A perfect blend of aggression, technicality and melody. And unlike a lot of guitar solos where it comes down to a case of technicality or artistry, this never comes up here. If I had to complain, I'd say that even after years of extreme metal and having the lyrics, it can be hard to decipher the vocals.
I really don't have much critical thought on this one simply because it was almost everything I wanted out of tech death. What more did I want? Elements.

10/10