Why all the negative reviews to this masterpiece ?
this is without doubt Pestilence greatest work. Mameli has proved himself to be a musical genuis. His vision and innovation magical.
Why metal comunity ?

Ok I'll bite, although I may live to regret this decision. Why do you consider Doctrine to be Pestilence's finest hour and have you listened to the rest of their work?

I'm with androdion here. You can't compare that thing with Malleus Maleficarum, Consuming Impulse and Testimony of the Ancients by a very fucking long shot.

It's not remotely close to the first two, but I think I prefer it to everything that came in between. I think the groovy/thrashy approach they took fit well, not being too ambitious but with enough polish and minor flourishes to make a solid album. Reminds me a bit of Invocator's tech-groove stuff.

Firstly i must state i have been a pestilence fan from day one and have all their recordings. doctrine destroys everything in their catalogue and is their finest hour because patricks vision on this work is genuis. the riffing is techinal, groovy and fresh. the soloing is amazing with killer runs and the guitars are heavy as hell. also patricks vocals are from his heart and soul on this recording and is his greatest performance. lyrics are also the best pestilence have had dealing with the corruption of religion death and insanity written in such a poetic way. yumas drumming is also the best with insane blasting and techinal off beats along with pestilences greatest bass player jeroen. his playing is magic great jazzy fusion runs and soloing in the song absolution . this recording is just pure class and is a metal masterpiece that will stand the test of time, hail pestilence hail doctrine.

Guess I just don't see it that way. Personally? Give me Consuming Impulse over Doctrine any day.

First growl from Mameli and I pissed my pants laughing, not a good sign. I agree with Xlxlx, but I'll one up that, give me Malleus Malificarum, Consuming Impulse, Testimony of the Ancients, and Spheres any day over this.

Pestilence ended back in 1989..

It's not a terrible album by itself, but it simply doesn't hold up to the rest of the back catalogue. The performances and musicianship we've come to know and expect are there, but it tries a little too hard to be what the band isn't and the songwriting suffers for it. Even if you're not a fan of Resurrection Macabre like I am, you have to admit there's a viciousness to that album that's just not present on this one. I think if they wanted to go "Spheres: The Sequel" on us, they should have gone full-bore with it like the original instead of the little jazzy nods to it here and there. Tell you what, Patrick. Keep Pestilence going with this lineup and with regularly scheduled album releases, none of this 3-5 year shit like most other bands in your position would do, and I'll chalk this one up to being a little sidestep along the way to pad out the discography. He's capable of better than this and any fan worth their salt has let go of the Van Drunen thing years ago.



Case in point to my last sentence. Come the fuck on already. Do you guys pine for your exes this desperately? You're really going to chalk them up as a "one-and-done" band based on their debut only? If you're not a fan of anything after the first 2 albums I can concede that but then you better amend that to say 1990, the year Van Drunen actually left.

its a pretty good record although the bass is a bit too loud, mameli does good aping on van drunen vox and the music better and more old school than the last album...certainly doesnt deserve the ridiculously low rating it has here

the real problem though is those fucking 8 string guitars...I mean they fit the record but these fucking assholes use them at live shows as well and rape the old songs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vSiBQTFozs&t=48s

To be honest, it's not really that bad. The problem is that Resurrection Macabre was a full death metal release and when Doctrine came, no one expected to be so disjointed. Tt tries to be jazzy and groovy but the only really jazzy elements there is Jeroen's bass playing. I like Mameli's vocal work, which has more character than RM, but I guess he's better writing more traditional metal songs than hybrid stuff. If he want to mix both things, he should take a look how Atheist and Cynic did back in the day (Spheres wasn't really heavy to begin with). Oh, and put the fucking 8 string guitar to rest, a good distortion and playing in D is enough.

Really?! Well I'll respect your view of it but I'll rightfully disagree with it. Every one of their first four albums is kind of unique in a way, although I really don't like Spheres but I can see where they went with that one. I find the Van Drunen years to be the best, the sheer aggression and fury of the first couple of albums is really something, so many good riffs to choose from that you eventually drown on them. I personally prefer Malleus but that's just me. Testemony is a more melodic, semi-progressive effort and I also love it together with its concept of eight songs + eight intros, and I actually like Mamelli's voice there.

Now coming to Resurrection Macabre, it's just so ridiculously dumb and "brootal", you know?! I can't stand that album and Mamelli's idea of modern day Pestilence is just about that downtuned route as you can think of. Considering all his previous statements it seems very clear to me why he's still making music nowadays, it's the only thing he can actually do for a living, so he'll just do something easily digestible that gives him actual money. That's my opinion, got nothing on you, but I personally can't stand modern day Pestilence. So is Doctrine horrible? Barely, but it's nothing worth getting your pants wet about, and if I can trace a line of comparison then I'd say it's the same as modern day Terrorizer, plain boring.

And as someone else said, they absolutely rape their old songs live! Why cruel world, why???


Now this is just wrong on so many levels...

I hate nitpicking and I certainly hate to be the one to nitpick, but Pestilence do not do music for living. I read an interview with Mameli where he clearly states he has an actual job outside Pestilence and if anything they more often LOSE money from doing a big tour than make any.
Also if "downtuned route" is not a metaphor then you're wrong about that as well, Resurrection Macabre was played on standard E just like Testimony and Spheres. Doctrine uses 8 string guitars so I believe the tuning is F# on that one.


yay that was me who said it
they started using 8 strings live in mid-2011 or something...thank god I saw them live in 2009!

Nitpick at will mate, it was just my perception of it. If Mameli said that then I don't know why they keep doing music. Wasn't he the guy who was fed up with metal fans and all that crap a few years back? So now all of a sudden he feels like reactivating the band and making it a regular thing? Beats me if I understand what goes by in his head nowadays...

As for the tuning thing I mentioned you can call it a metaphor, albeit in a loosely manner. I'll tell you right up front that I don't have any notions of musical theory so I can't tell you in what tuning they actually play nor any of that stuff. But I'll tell you this, Resurrection Macabre has a tuning that reminds me more of Suffocation than Pestilence. Is it due to the fat production job? Possibly, but it does sound way different from Testimony to be honest.

Belive it or not I do have an answer for that as well! Mameli did a really long interview in 2009 explaining that whole thing.
Yes he did legitimately stop liking metal but that was long time ago when they made the Spheres album and Mameli got mad because no one liked it, saying that metalheads are bunch of conservative shitheads who know nothing about music and all that stuff (not too far from the truth if you ask me...) and then also at this time Mameli discovered an amazing guitarist called Alan Holdsworth or something like that, anyway the guy was so amazing that he made Mameli feel like a complete rookie and a lost child so knowing that he'd never be as good as that guy Mameli decided to quit everything related to music. Some time in early 2000's he met a woman he fell in love with and that also inspired him to start playing guitar again (both shared a liking for Alan Holdsworth) which in turn lead to him getting back into metal as well, so he decided to create that ill-fated project C-187 who made one album that no one really liked. In 2008 Mameli somehow magically found himself in a Hate Eternal gig which got him into death metal again, and since the record label didn't want another C-187 album Mameli went on to promise them a new Pestilence album...and the rest is history. So basically Patrick Mameli does this now because he loves it.

As for the tuning thing that's really a way too long thing for me to explain here, go to the musician discussion or wikipedia or something...I'll just say that guitar TUNING and guitar TONE are 2 different things, and yes Resurrection Macabre does have a similar guitar TONE to bands like Suffocation and yes it is due to the "fat" modern production job, but Suffocation play in a lot lower TUNING (C to be exact) than Pestilence did on Resurrection Macabre.

Talk about a history lesson there mate! And I get what you mean about tuning vs tone.

The "Noone liked my music; ergo the fans of this genre are a bunch of conservative shitheads" argument is used by almost everybody to justify their shitty projects. Hell, it may even to a large extent be a sort of truth, but hardly for the reasons that these lost artists (Patrick M., the guys in Metallica around 1996, etc) always suppose! Now I don't really expect too many artists to come out and admit, mere months after an album materialises, "well sorry fellows, I know that album I just made was really shit and it's not your fault you don't enjoy it", but I'm getting tired of the ole' "well my fans are a bunch of intellectually bankrupt losers if they don't like my experimental turds" argument.

I didn't really like Resurrection Macabre and got kind of bored during their set at MDF a couple of years back, but this thread is going to make me check out DOctrine. While I stand by the paragraph I wrote above I know we all tend to go through phases from time to time and it's not entirely beyond reason that he's come back to playing metal because it is in some fashion exciting to him again.

Actually, I watched an interview where Mameli himself claimed he doesn't listen to any music, of any kind, because he feels it will "influence his playing". Perhaps the shitty music of the most recent album is a reflection of what a shitty guy he is .

Maybe that's the problem. He needs to listen to some quality music (doesn't have to be metal, there's a lot of good folk, blues, jazz, classical, and rock out there). Everyone is influenced by something to a certain degree and that's not always a bad thing.

Also, it probably would do him some good to remove his head from his ass and get some fresh air.

i like it, i even got it on vinyl recently, i like all pestilence.

I consider it better than resurrection macabre but its basically meshuggah influenced death metal and i dont like meshuggah.

I like their return with Resurrection Macabre, and I like what I've heard off this album.

But I don't consider it Pestilence, to me it's totall just a brand new band with Mameli.

my personal favourite is by far "spheres"
i think its the epitome of their creativity
totally mindblowing

I've had this for a while but haven't gotten around to listening to it. Consuming Impulse and Malleus Maleficarum are two of my favorite metal albums ever, so I'll be giving this a try soon. Testimony and Spheres aren't bad, either, but I find both of them somewhat lacking in the sound and atmosphere they were trying to achieve on those albums, whereas their two first albums achieve precisely what they were going for and then some.

Another lineup change. Thesseling and van Eekelen are out; Stephan Fimmers and Tim Yeung are in:

http://legacy.roadrunnerrecords.com/bla ... mID=170115

Already have an album title for the next record as well in Obsideo. This indicates a few things to me. First, Necrophagist is either dead on the slab or just waiting to be brought to the morgue. Second, Commando is back with Morbid Angel for good or they're making Terrorizer the priority and are planning some kind of hiatus in the near future for MA. Thirdly, Thesseling is just not happy to be in a band situation right now with anyone and I doubt that he's going back to Obscura. Finally, this reinforces my statement that the Patricks are going to keep Pestilence moving ahead with continuous material instead of placating to the nostalgic crowd. I do hope that they let Fimmers in on the songwriting. I doubt that he would have considered joining on a full-time basis (for now, at least) if he wasn't going to have a hand in it. This could be what the band needs right now. Aad from fellow Dutchmen Sinister practically detonated the whole lineup last year and is going to record their next album in June as a five-piece. I'm looking forward to that album and we might be seeing a similar strategy here.

Well, I thought Pestilence was dead so this thread made me check this out, song called 'Doctrine'. Well, I don't know if its representative of the album but - it's pretty terrible. Didn't chugging go out of fashion in 2004?

I guess Jeroen's problem it's his job/money stuff. He left Obscura to pay the bills - he couldn't go on touring for weeks/months when the money wasn't enough - and kept Pestilence cause he played just (or mostly) on weekends. He was teacher in Milano as a sidejob too, but looks like he'll work more as a studio musician. Sad thing, since he's one of the most talented bassist in the whole metal scene.

Hopefully he'll join another band where he can make a living out music.