Hallucinations

Listening to the album here and other fully accomplished visionary works like Nocturnus’ “The Key”, Disharmonic Orchestra’s “Expositionsprophylaxe”, Pestilence’s “Consuming Impulse”, etc. I can’t help but marvel at the inordinately early arrived maturity within the death metal roster… probably the only music genre that managed to hit such creative peaks even before it was legitimized as a standalone entity within the music industry.

The genre quickly outgrew the collaborations with its brethren thrash, and thanks to the mentioned albums embarked on a journey around the technical/progressive branch that reached heights deemed impossible… again, quite early. For some mysterious reason, death metal had attracted some of the greatest musicians to ever walk this earth who swiftly elevated it to the level of art by at the same time leaving quite a few options open as well for the future practitioners to add something to it; a noble thing to do by all means.

I’m watching now this really tough, WWE-inspired tussle between the mentioned “The Key” and these “Hallucinations” here, trying to guess prematurely which opus would come victorious as the ultimate game-changer within the good old death metal confines… I'm trying to recall feedbacks and opinions of fellow metal heads through the years regarding those two in order to make a more educated guess…

and here they are, these atrocious Germans, edging out the Tampa-bred nocturnal animals by a few notches, emerging scathed and burnt from this battle, but content enough with the final result. And it can’t be any other way as if there ever was an audacious, eye-opening, literally hallucinogenic listening experience within the early stages of the death metal scene, it was the one here.

It’s really hard to imagine what compelled the band to come up with this madness; one really has to be careful here cause if approaching this album without the requisite precautionary measures, he/she may have his/her subconscious seriously violated, what with some of the most dizzying, spiral-like beginnings in metal history on “Deep in Your Subconscious”, the bouts of more linear brutality only aggravating the surreal setting with the unrestrained monstrous growls of Alex Krull circling around, looking to finish off those who have somehow managed to survive this aural insanity. On the soothing side, there’s seldom adherence to outrageous brutality, the time and tempo changes so frequent that there’s a very slim chance for a pummelling blast-beating etude to last beyond the few-second spasm. Headbanging opportunities come aplenty, mind you, especially on short bursting technicallers like the twisted nervy jumper “Life Is a Long and Silent River”, but don’t get misled by the short length of “Fatal Step”, for instance, a shredder of the highest order, a cunning vortex-like configuration that will wrap around you like a serpent with its seductive mid-paced bounces.

Even more chaotic, seemingly less controlled, outbursts like “Abyss of Addiction” have their inevitable charm due to the very aptly twisted melodic walkabouts the latter throwing the bridge across the Atlantic in an involuntary nod towards “The Key” again, only that the riff-density here is simply overwhelming, and there are no keyboards here to save the hapless listener. The keyboards, or rather organ tunes, appear eventually, but only on the “Last Temptation” (yes, the closer), as an atmospheric accompaniment to another whirlwind of dazzling rifforamas, the rhythms changing in such a quick succession that the fan will thoroughly savour a mandragora-like screaming virtuoso lead section as a needful respite. Labyrinthine, multi-layered musicality peaks early here as it would be a most unenviable task for one to try and beat the myriad utterly bizarre time-signatures on the title-track, or the adventurous abrupt bridges on “Defeated Intellect” which jump from a stomping doomy section to a dazzlingly brutal one just like that, in a nearly impromptu-like manner, not to mention the otherworldly super-tight, also impossibly melodic, riff-knots and the spastic, schizophrenic blast-beating insanity frequently inserted, bringing the drama to a nearly hysterical, fever-pitch culmination.

And yet, despite the inordinate amount of ideas and audacious musical decisions this effort doesn’t sound incoherent or randomly assembled, not even for a split second. The early-90’s metalhead would either listen in awe and stupefaction at every surprise around the corner or would dismiss this opus as the ultimate exercise in highly-stylized chaos, something which the dazzling brutality movement (Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Defeated Sanity, etc.) by all means touched later, in both terms of execution and (non)structuring, but never really elaborated on… cause elaboration on this over-the-top musical carnival wasn’t actually possible. Everything from the not fully equipped yet technical/progressive death metal kitchen has been exhibited in its full grandeur, covering the utmost detail, even these polemical keyboard/organ inclusions that made “The Key” time and again such an open-for-debate recording. Nothing has been missed, literally, not as a nod to already past feats, there were no such before it; but solely as a possible template for the valiant and wayward musicians to follow in the future.

And some by all means tried their hands on similar mazey rifftastic wizardry, Atheist and Gorguts following quickly with “Unquestionable Presence” and “Considered Dead” respectively, among other lesser known works although it was Atrocity again who lined up the whole death metal fraternity and made them listen in reverential submission to another lesson in twisted music magic that was the sophomore. Two grand missions accomplished within a very short span of time seemed more than enough for a duty fulfilled to society in this or any other life so it didn’t come as such a surprise, I guess, the shift in focus witnessed later in the 90’s. A shift that didn’t make the diehard death metal fanbase very happy, but one that won the band many new fans.

The good old death was honoured, and not only with a few timid nods, on the guys’ latest “Okkult”; it seems to me a nude, by no means a dress rehearsal for a potential hallucinogenic cocktail based on the old recipe… yeah, keep on dreaming, you incorrigible air-header! Like a marvel of the kind can possibly occur again in this lifetime…