Review by Sonny for Atrocity (GER) - Hallucinations (1990)

I don't recall having listened to Atrocity before, but I have gleaned from a bit of background research that they are a chameleonic act who have gone through several evolutions of sound embracing gothic, groove, folk and industrial metal. This debut, released in 1990, reveals the band's roots to be dug deep into death metal and particularly the emerging tech death sound pioneered by the likes of Death, Cynic and Atheist. Personally I have a bit of an on / off relationship with tech death as it sometimes, especially in its modern incarnation, gets a bit too jagged and staccato for my particular preferences. I do enjoy many of these early pioneering tech death albums, though, especially those that manage to retain enough of the old-school death metal sound I love and thus keep me engaged and along for the ride. Luckily, I am able to add "Hallucinations" to my list of great early tech-death releases and to expand my enjoyment of the style.

With the ambition that Atrocity exhibit here on their debut it is really no surprise that they sought to expand beyond the restrictions of just playing one style throughout their career, as if they have a pathological refusal to be labelled and stereotyped. A great example of this ambition are the twists and turns they take in a sub-three-minute track such as "Fatal Step" which leave you thinking you just listened to a track two or three times that length. The songwriting is of such strength, though, that these diverse song parts lead into each other in a natural and seemless manner that doesn't interrupt the flow of the tracks and doesn't jar with me like several other technically-focussed death metal acts do. In fact I can only really recall one occasion where I felt a bit of jigsaw-like jaggedness coming in and that was during "Hold Out (To the End)" which unfortunately failed the flow test a couple of times.

With some killer riffs, a grimy and gritty guitar sound and a vocalist who sounds like he gargles with rusty nails and barbed wire Atrocity amass more than enough old-school credits to allow me to fully engage with their more ambitious side and to really get to grips with their technical flights of fancy. In fact they really had me hooked when the organ kicked in on closing track "Last Temptation", totally destroying all preconceptions, as if they were saying that we hadn't seen anything yet. I would quite happily set this on a shelf next to "Human" and "Piece of Time" and not consider it out of its league.