Register Forgot login?

© 2002-2024
Encyclopaedia Metallum

Privacy Policy

Yattering > Human's Pain > Reviews
Yattering - Human's Pain

yeetering - 82%

RapeTheDead, December 4th, 2019

It’s a shame Yattering isn’t at the top of the Polish death metal pyramid. They have enough chops and a distinct enough personality to hang with the best of em, and not only that but they’re a fantastic representation of what makes the regional style sound so specifically delicious. It rips like thrash, grooves like death metal, and there’s enough blast-heavy drumming to satisfy all the speedfreaks out there. The mix of styles creates a meaty yet still complex and riff-focused style that should be a preference among extreme metal connoisseurs. Believe me, there’s a handful of bands out there who followed in Vader’s footsteps (Dies Irae, Lost Soul, early Decapitated), and they’re all really good and distinct already, and Yattering has more staying power and immediately hooks you in more than any of them. I’m actually surprised that putting out a lame trip-hop album screwed these guys so hard just because of how quality their stuff was before that. Did the fans really feel that hurt?

Human’s Pain is the most overlooked album in a discography of a band that already gets shafted to begin with. It’s typical in the sense that it’s an embryonic debut, showing flashes of what the band would later evolve into while being relatively straightforward and primitive. In 1998 all of the little weird quirks that Yattering realized work really well in their songs hadn’t been discovered yet. They were still young dudes who probably listened to a fuckload of old-school thrash, and the early Vader influence makes its presence felt on Human’s Pain more than any other Yattering album. It’s the thrashier, underdeveloped little brother, which makes it a good entry point into the band’s style. Yattering is still finding their sound, and while it’s a very technical and disjointed sound, they do take fewer songwriting risks on Human’s Pain. The vocals are the most noticeable difference from later works. On Murder’s Concept, Marcin Swierczynski  has these slurring, maniacal growls that barely sound like they’re following the riffs. Human’s Pain showcases a similar low vocal tone, but the actual delivery of the lines is much more conventional and follows the riffs in a much more typical way.  He also doesn’t use that weird, prickly high vocal thing yet (he does use high rasps, so maybe that’s just a production effect?). The schizophrenic he-man roars of later Yattering might be an acquired taste for some (I immediately loved them, but could see how they’d take some getting used to), so Human’s Pain provides a much more accessible take on the same vocal style. Theoretically it’s a good way to warm you up.

Even without yet having all the little eccentricities that put Yattering over the top and make them a regularly intriguing listen, Human’s Pain still has more than enough in its toolbox to make an album that’s engaging front-to-back. For an underground debut the musicianship, sheer volume of little riff tangents, and sudden tempo stops and shifts is almost unheard of for a band at this stage in their career, not to mention that this was put out in 1998, a noted dark age for death metal.  All the best bands at the time were getting buried in the underground, which is why Yattering maybe didn’t take off as much as they should, and then by the mid-2000s when people kind of started listening to death metal again, Yattering was already over it and listening to Prodigy or whatever. I guess that’s the downside of being ahead of the game, nobody notices you until the game is over.  Either way, these guys are mandatory listening for anyone who likes early tech-death or weird extreme metal in general, and Human’s Pain is a great starting point for that journey if you haven’t started yet. It’s also a good bread-and-butter listen for anyone who likes riffy death/thrash with lots of wack ass solos. If you don’t fit in any of the categories I listed above, you probably suck anyways. This is likely out of print, so steal it off the internet next time you get a chance!