Dimensions

If there is one thing I love about bands is progression. Just like Megadeth (of which so far I hate only 2 albums because of this extremely edged progression) that sounds completely different from one album or another. Same case with Mortification and so on and so forth. This gives the opportunity to pick up some album if you want to listen to more hard rock-ished tunes, more metal, more speed metal, even thrash or even, for further purposes, experimental metal. I do believe that Dimensions is the perfect progression the band was known for, being the difference from the debut ‘Extraction from Mortality’ with the Tom Araya-esque vocals to the sheer brutality and technical approach on ‘Sanity Obscure’ to their final chapter (back then) of experimentation with opera, acoustic passages, spoken interludes, quintessential tempo changes and inclusion of many elements that make this album special in many instances.

‘Dimensions’ lacks some things despite its genius. For instance I still hate the vocals, even softer and more experimental than Sanity Obscure so these screechy screams, I can’t really dig them. On the other hand it lacks punch. There is, pretty much only one fast song here, so this is hardly a thrash album. When you listen to the first chords on the first song you can think: ‘wow, this sounds Sepultura’s heavy thrash’, but once the riff comes forth, that idea fades away. There are indeed double bass fast tempos but they don’t even fill one song. The majority of the albums run on middle tempo with the driving changes throughout the songs but even those flaws don’t take away the magic of this album which I still consider to be their best, and the pinnacle of creativity on a thrash album.

There is not much to say about the songs except maybe that there are fast songs (a few but fast anyway), ballad-esque songs, opera/metal songs, progressive-esque songs, mid tempo songs and all of these elements almost on every song as well. Intricate riffing and melodic solos are present throughout. The level of technical elements on all of the songs is remarkable. The main riff on ‘Gone’ is delicious, malicious and cool. What brings down the song, to me, is the excess of spoken (recorded) parts. But there are many interesting rhythm parts. ’Singularity’ is another fast track double tempo that works fine but it lacks, again like the rest of songs here, the punch of Extraction from Mortality and certainly the brutality of Sanity Obscure. ‘Dimentia’ is basically an acoustic song and it deals with the theory of evolution against God’s creation. It is all spoken and only the chorus has this trashy screechy voice. The solo is almost not melodic but rhythmic. The climax is very calm to though-provoke you and even a violin solo ends the song. Despite its flaws, it is a great song and I’d say my favorite here. ‘What is but cannot be’ is a darker track where the guitars sound evil. There is a buzz created to make you feel indeed that the track is darker and the progressive elements in the riffs are killer. The voice is distorted, again, to provoke this darkened feeling on you.

I would dare to say that the drumming is very effective and viciously far superior on a technical level. Think Mike Portnoy’s approach and you get the idea where you get lots of textures, tons of tempo changes and dramatic change signatures. The guy takes advantage of the drum kit as much as he can. The ‘Trilogy of knowledge’ is one of the best metal/opera speed metal tracks ever written. It is so sad it didn’t get any recognition back then, but it was until the 90s when the euro power metal bands got recognition for performing something that it was long ago done. This superb track (s) has it all: soprano vocals, masterly performed tempo changes, fast parts, thrash metal vocals, intricate riffing, all! It is almost 18min. of pure experimental thrash performed on a superior skill level.

The vocals are now multilayered so the effect can provoke a certain dark atmosphere on the songs. The bass is now audible and I must say it goes along with the guitars perfectly, making the album solid (not yet heavy per se or brutal) but think of the bass lines thickness as on The Gathering by Testament. Production-wise since all the instruments now sound compact, as a whole and no instrument (even the voice) overpowers the rest as in past albums.

Believer did what they do the best: put together a lot of influences and styles on this absolute killer album which is the epitome of thrash experimentation with really cool elements and if you are into different thrash bands this is it. This is the album that marked a high level of skills which, as of today, cannot be compared to anything that I have heard before. They were, back in 1993, the quartet of knowledge.