Hallucinations

“A classic death metal album”, no less, is how I would describe Atrocity’s debut that was released back in 1990 (the original pressing that is). It may not be the most known death metal album of the time but it certainly deserves a review here because I think many death metal fans would like this a lot. Imagine a mixture of traditional early 90s death metal with the technicality of Atheist (“Piece of Time” era) and early At the Gates. Add to this the brutal side of Cynic and you’ll get an idea of what “Hallucinations” is all about. Another band that comes to mind when listening to this is Viogression, Alex Krull’s vocals are at times very similar to those of Brian DeNeffe (however, “Hallucinations” was released before Viogression’s debut). The music is really well played and in general the songs are brutal, technical and even progressive with tons of tempo changes, unpredictable arrangements and at times weird and off-the-wall guitar riffs. The songs aren’t arranged in the typical verse/bridge/chorus way, you never know what will happen next in the music when you listen to this album. A song may e.g. start fast, then stop abruptly and go into either doom mode or become technical as hell before again continuing in yet another manner. In this respect “Hallucinations” reminds me of Darkthrone’s “Soulside Journey”, where the same kind of schizophrenic feeling is present in the music.

For example, “Fatal Step” begins with simple Autopsy-like riffs, then comes the chorus with its sudden grind bursts, then a technical bass line starts after which the guitars join in playing something totally different than the bass and so on. ”Hold Out (to the End)” contains a part that’s extremely similar to a part on At the Gates’ track “Neverwhere”. Makes you wonder if the At the Gates guys had listened to their share of Atrocity, I bet they had, hehe. The final track, “Last Temptation”, has a church organ-type keyboard solo in the middle. Wouldn’t have expected that from an old school death metal album but here it is anyway.

Lyrically “Hallucinations” is a concept album, telling the story of a girl who gets sexually abused as a child, becomes a junkie and eventually dies of an OD. It does take a while to get into this album properly due to the technicality of the music but when you do, you can’t but worship it. My only complaint is about the production, the snare drum is too loud and the guitars are a bit too low in the mix but this is a minor thing. If you listen closely enough, you’ll catch all the details. “Hallucinations” is a must for all fans of frantic technical death metal.