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Class 6(66)

Atheist: Unquestionable presence

17/12/12  ||  Sokaris

Introduction

With roots stretching all the way back to the mid-80’s as R.A.V.A.G.E., Atheist had come a long way from their comparatively more mild mannered formative material. The band had issued a classic debut and subsequently tasked themselves with following up such a unique entry into the fledgling death metal movement. Since bold musical expedition worked the first time around, Atheist fearlessly moved forward again, blazing further into the wilderness that would later be referred to as technical death metal. More progressive influences are stirred into the mix expertly, serving to characterize the band without ever watering down the metal at hand or coming across as ill-advised.

Atheist’s (unfortunately short) career peaks here and the progressive death metal bar has been raised insanely high, leaving the bands that would later populate the style a nearly impossible task.

Songwriting

10. Some really brilliant stuff going on here. It’s heady without having its head up its ass, twisted riffs managing to both challenge and engage the listener. Atheist’s sound was born in a rehearsal room, a bunch of gifted death-heads trying to push each other’s playing abilities to the max. That jazzy sense of one-upmanship is a running theme throughout, everyone really exploring their instruments and using every tool available.

Production

9. Rich and full with plenty of separate clarity to the individual instruments. The drums are especially well done and display how one can actually feature a kit that sounds like a real acoustic set alongside complex death metal. The stringed instruments feature a warm tone with bass high in the mix.

Guitars

9. Performance wise, something to behold. Though the guitar explores plenty of tricks and musicians will appreciate the inventiveness of the double lefty team of Kelly Shaefer and Rand Burkey.The lead tone sears with a wide brightness that penetrates the crunch of the rhythm guitars, adding a further depth of musicality to the unpredictable proceedings.

Vocals

7. I could probably copy and paste my assessment of Kelly’s vocal performance from my Piece of time here because this time around is pretty much the same thing. The vocal style is dead-on, I just wish the guy sounded a little more pissed off.

Bass

10. Congratulations Atheist, I can FINALLY give a perfect score to the bass performance on an album. Credit for this should actually be shared between two men; original bassist Roger Patterson who arranged and recorded in the pre-production sessions (which can be heard on the Relapse reissue) and Tony Choy, who performed on the album after Patterson’s tragic death. Jazzy pops, finger-fanning cluster riffs and some deep badass bassery. Four-stringers: Listen and hate yourselves.

Drums

9. Steve Flynn really knows how to play with tons of style and personality. His ability to flawlessly handle complex stop/start patterns, bridge tempo changes with some really amazing fills and add syncopation really bring the band’s compositions together. Fire up “Retribution” and pay attention to what the man does to accommodate the tempo change/solo early in the song.

Lyrics

6. A little cosmic here, an environmentalist song there and abstract, presumably inebriated pondering abounds. Fairly well written for the most part but for every couple stanzas of poignant poetry there’s an awkward phrase or goofy line.

Cover art

7. This is basically the only Atheist album adorned with a cover not created by a legendary artist (Ed Repka, Necrolord and Eliran Kantor handling the other releases) but, despite its comparative simplicity it still holds up fairly well against the others. There’s some enhoyable irony to an image of a boy praying above the words “UNQUESTIONABLE PRESENCE” being branded with a giant Atheist logo.

Logo

8. Looks almost identical to how it was done last time around, except with a darker outline and a touch more saturation in the red. An 8 again.

Booklet

9. Another one from the Relapse reissue series, extremely extended liner notes with old photos and tons of bonus tracks included after the regular album. The story of the band continues with a section on Roger Patterson’s passing, a mention of the band’s poor reception opening for Cannibal Corpse and general insights into the album.

Overall and ending rant

Not a drastic departure from “Piece of time”, more of a refining of the core elements and a push towards slightly more progressive pastures. This is Atheist’s peak and in turn the peak of early technical death metal. Despite tragedy, disappointment and the struggles of playing music even the underground death metal scene seemed slow to adapt to, Atheist put together a masterpiece I’m sure Roger Patterson would be overwhelmingly proud to have helped put into motion. Unfortunately it’s likely that some of these events contributed to the band’s hiatus. The third and final Atheist album, “Elements”, was essentially created to fulfill a contract and the band was laid to rest. But that’s a story for another time.

Atheist’s sophomore album is required listening for anyone investigating the early Florida boom of death, anyone into instrumentally challenging extreme metal and just about anyone with decent taste in metal.

Unquestionably, this album should be present on your shelves.

9.5

  • Information
  • Released: 1991
  • Label: Roadrunner Records
  • Website: www.atheistmusic.com
  • Band
  • Kelly Shaefer: vocals, guitar
  • Rand Burkey: guitars
  • Tony Choy: bass
  • Steve Flynn: drums
  • Tracklist
  • 01. Mother man
  • 02. Unquestionable presence
  • 03. Retribution
  • 04. Enthralled in essence
  • 05. An incarnation’s dream
  • 06. The formative years
  • 07. Brains
  • 08. And the psychic saw

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