Pestilence - Consuming Impulse (1989)^{Release ID: 1221}

While I do think Consuming Impulse is a slight step up from Malleus Maleficarum, it wasn't the sort of step up I had been hoping for when it was released. The production is definitely better, and there's a little bit more focus than the debut, but overall, it's a bit more of the same. It wasn't until third album Testimony of the Ancients that Pestilence would become a truly great band.

That’s not to say that this album isn't worth your time. Once just like on the debut, it's the riffs that make it enjoyable. Martin's vocals are good but not exceptional, and the drumming is adequate if not amazing. But check out the riffs on The Process of Suffocation, Suspended Animation, Chronic Infection and Out of the Body. Every time I hear them, I can't help nodding my head in utter respect. When it all comes together on this album as it does on those tracks, it makes for an awesome listen.

Yet, in a similar way to the debut, there are some tracks on Consuming Impulse that are merely OK. Opener Dehydrated, The Trauma and Defy the Master for just pass by without making me feel much at all. They're not terrible by any means, but they lack the x factor that would have taken this album from merely enjoyable to essential.

As I explored more and more metal in my early days online, some of the giants in their respective fields would typically be moved upward on my charts once I "got them."  Now I've fleshed out a criteria so strict that some of these giants are just getting seriously lowered.  Today's example would be an album I still consider great on its own merits, but I feel has been slaughtered at the altar by better bands like Morbid Angel: Consuming Impulse.  Don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy a serious metal edge here.  This is one of those albums that allowed for a perfectly produced take on an otherwise noisy metal genre to reach its fullest power without anything being drowned out.  Most of the songs here are somewhere between copies of each other and just different enough to get by, so it's a highly consistent piece with no real variety.  Death had already been established by this point, so some more of that would be appreciated.

If you want some raw thrashing for 25 minutes, this is one of the best examples, much like the Ramones debut was for the punk attitude.  But both albums are still samey throughout.  This is about the same as the Ramones debut to me.

The Dutch masters' debut, Malleus Maleficarum, was a pretty brutal sounding thrash metal album, one I have always had a huge amount of time for, but despite the deathly vocals of future Asphyx frontman Martin van Drunen, it was still a thrash album in the vein of Possessed or Sepultura with little actual death metal. Consuming Impulse on the other hand exhibits a further descent down the extremity rabbit-hole and marks the transformation from brutal thrash to actual death metal.

As Dehydrated leaps kicking and clawing out of the blocks, it is immediately obvious that this is a very different beast to the debut. The production is fuller, clearer and is much more bottom heavy which accentuates the brutality of the performances and is much more in keeping with the band's evolution into a death metal machine. The legion of riffs are powerful, aggressive and exceedingly memorable - I find them running through my head long after I have finished listening, particularly those featured in Suspended Animation, The Trauma and Echoes of Death. Patricks Mameli and Uterwijk trade solos in the vein of Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King, their lead work being very strongly influenced by the Slayer guitarists it seems, although I would also say that influenced though they are, they don't just slavishly mimic the Slayer duo, but still stamp their soloing with their own personality.

Mention must also be made of Martin van Drunen's vocal performance. He sounds tortured, deranged and defiant as he rasps and shrieks his words of pain, suffering and death, turning in an archetypal death metal vocal performance. This would be his last recording with Pestilence before jumping ship to join Asphyx - so one death metal legend's loss is another's gain! Drummer Marco Foddis also turns in a fine performance, solid and machine gun-like, adding an understated solidity to the proceedings. There is also a sparse smattering of keyboards employed which, on the two or three occasions they are used, prove to be exceedingly effective.

There seems to be some contradiction as to the bass player on Consuming Impulse - Metal Archives attributes bass duties to guitarist Patrick Mameli, yet I have seen others comment that Martin van Drunen was the bassist on the album. Either way, the bass seems to be the most neglected aspect of the recording, buried as it is underneath the riffing and drum battery, so I don't know whether this confusion is the result of the band not being 100% happy with the bass track. This minor niggle aside, I think the Dutchmen can put their sophomore up against any of the early death metal albums coming out of the USA and hold their collective head high that they can be spoke of in the same sentence as Death, Morbid Angel and Obituary and not come up short.

The rabid death/thrash sound of the debut album from Pestilence Malleus Maleficarum was replaced by a more straight forward death metal sound on the sophomore record. Still a massively riffy affair, Consuming Impulse was the sound of extreme music delivered skillfully.

Patrick Mameli's dexterity on guitar knows no bounds on the band's sophomore release. He took simple riffing and elevated into a frenzied intensity that still had enough in the way of catchiness to make them memorable and repeatable, either in your head or on your own six string. On the same record there were still more complex passages that showed his range yet still they gave space to Van Drunen who set about his trademark unhinged, deranged and crazed vocal style to great effect on what was to be his final release with the band (very much a big loss as it turned out to be). 

This was all from a band several thousand of miles away from the developing US death metal scene, yet the Dutch band from Enschede, Overijssel dropped an album of such magnitude and presence that it could trade blows with the Morbid Angel's and Obituary's of the time and only narrowly lose out on points. 

In a rapidly developing scene the release of Consuming Impulse showed just how the spread of death metal could infect the European market as it went on to infect the world. This album acted like a super-spreader, taking all the good elements of the debut and marrying them up with an enhanced arsenal of riffs and howls. The rabid thrashing of the debut became the threat of greater devastation from a slightly more measured delivery on the follow up.  The maturity and adaptability displayed on only their second record to my ears drained the tank for the rest of the band's output as they have never topped Consuming Impulse.