Values

The second Chemical Breath album hasn’t found its audience yet. Depending on your point of view, "Values" is either several years behind the times or several months ahead of them. The album marks a departure from the thrash-influenced death metal of their debut album ("Fatal Exposure"). “Values" contains no death metal at all. It is a tech-thrash record to the core. There are aspects of the earlier American technical thrash bands here (Watchtower, Forbidden, etc), and some tricks taken from Chuck Schuldiner, but it doesn’t sound much like any of these influences. The band's trajectory from death/thrash to technical thrash bears comparison with Sindrome, who made a similar move a couple of years before (on "Vault of Inner Conscience"). Few bands took this route.

Traditional thrash metal was long dead when this album came out (in 1994), even the technical, high-wire side of the genre was dead. The final remnants of thrash were being integrated into albums like "Burn My Eyes", simplifying the genre into a series of grooves and solos. Another band operating around this time was Meshuggah, who found their prototype sound with the “None” EP in the same year. Chemical Breath don't sound like Meshuggah, but both bands played complex, stuttering post-thrash with gruff vocals. I am tempted to slot "Values" into a notch between "Individual Thought Patterns" and "Destroy Erase Improve", where it fits musically and chronologically.

"Values" is barely recognisable as the same band who made "Fatal Exposure". The musicianship has improved, the drumming is much more fluid than before, the fills are convincing this time. The lead guitar playing is more sophisticated, the influence of James Murphy is clearer, and the playing is closer to his standard than it was on the debut. There are a lot of riffs, some of which are awesome. My favourite moments are when the band shifts into an off-time groove (e.g., 2:30 of "Inexplicable Being", or 2:28 of "Awaiting the Miracles"). You can tell that these guys can really play, and that they enjoy finding their way out of a complex arrangement.

There are some negatives. The gruff vocals are limited in comparison to those high-pitched tech-thrash vocals used by Toxik and the likes. There are a couple of occasions where the vocals sound strained ("The Open Field", "Message to the Mystic"). His previous death metal style was much better. The production is terrible. This is the typical over-processed nonsense that Delta Studios churned out for all the Crypta Records bands at the time. Every instrument has been over polished, but it all sounds like it was recorded underwater. It is therefore the worst of two worlds and has no redeeming features. At least Chemical Breath befit a clean sound, a record like this would have sounded odd with a gritty, lo-fi production.

There are plenty of metal-heads out there who would appreciate this album if they heard it. The same people who stumbled upon Аспид a few years ago would be advised to check this one out. My personal barrier with this record is that I'm not a huge fan of this style. For tech-thrash, I prefer the revolutionary sounds of records like "Control and Resistance", which is infinitely more intricate and interesting (and has better songs). I also preferred Chemical Breath as a death metal band, when they played a mix of Massacre and Sadus. Their debut album is a simpler, stronger album with a better production. Don't let my murmurings deter you if you like technical thrash though, "Values" is a good record.

Belgian thrash. Is there such a thing actually? Yes, there is, actually, and not only that, but the Belgians should be very proud for producing the first extreme (understand speed/proto-thrash) metal band in European metal history, alongside Venom; the name is almost as venomous: Acid. Building their style around Scorpions’ more aggressive, speed/thrash precursor material (“He’s a Woman, She’s a Man”, “Another Piece of Meat”, “Don’t Make no Promises”; “Steamrock Fever”, etc.), the band released their highly energetic self-titled debut in 1982 also taking another award home: for the first female-fronted metal act ever. And, of course, there were the guys from Crossfire who persevered through the early/mid-80's with three albums of decent "happy go lucky" power/speed metal not surprisingly moulded after the exploits of their German neighbours.

The beginning was really promising, but later on in terms of productivity the Belgian thrash metal scene sank to the bottom of the list. The sound inaugurated by Acid proved contagious for Warhead who were quick to capitalize on it with two good albums. Cyclone took the early Germanic sound as a model for their debut “Brutal Destruction” before hitting the top with the excellent, more serious and complex, sophomore effort “Inferior to None”. Then Mekong Delta's Ralph Hubert discovered this "diamond" of a band named Target whose brilliant mathematical thrash remains one of the finest moments on the whole European metal scene, especially the triumphant "Master Project Genesis" (1988). With the culmination of the scene's development reached on the aforementioned album, what followed was a string of second rate bands who released a solitary effort in the late-80’s before disappearing: Black Shepherd, Asphyxia, Decadence, Evil Sinner, not leaving any lasting trace on the circuit. From this group only Drakkar are really worth mentioning with their inspired speed/thrashing effort “X-Rated”.

When Chemical Breath appeared in the early-90's, the second wave of Belgian thrash started to form, and it started churning out higher quality albums: Patriarch did a good job with their Americanized power/thrash for a number of efforts; Channel Zero channeled the Bay-Area through their inspired self-titled debut before losing it for a succession of bland groovy albums; Yosh produced a cool speed/thrashing debut (“1991”) before elaborating it quite a bit on the very cool moody follow-up “Metaphors” (1995). And there were Exoto who already had their eye on the up-and-coming death metal hardly putting a foot wrong during their several demos and two full-lengths.

Of the aforementioned group, it was only Exoto who could possibly match Chemical Breath in terms of aggression. The guys entered the scene brutally with the “Brutal Violation” demo which was just raw direct bash without much sense. However, just a few months later the band already showed their penchant for the less ordinary and technical with their other demo “Beyond Reality” which was quickly followed by the brilliant debut “Fatal Exposure” which combined the style and ferocity of Pestilence’s “Testimony of the Ancients”, Assorted Heap’s ”The Experience of Horror”, Sadus’ “Swallowed in Black”, and Invocator’s “Excursion Demise”. It converted this concoction into a more exuberantly technical beast, with more twists and turns, and with more blistering lead sections the latter close to overriding the riff-patterns at times even.

Two years later the guys are back and if we exclude the gruff, unpolished shouty vocals, all the rest has been taken to new heights the rhythm-section now being more intense with a more accentuated edge as evident from the cutting opener “Inexplicable Being”. More atmospheric progressiveness will one come across on “Reduce Your Value” which will make you increase your value towards the progressive side of the genre. The swirling technical riffs on “Waiting the Miracles” will throw you towards Death’s “Human” and the Dutch Polluted Inheritance’s debut “Ecocide”, but expect your fillings to drop on the fast-paced passage near the end. “Message to the Mystic” will be a message to all past, present and future technical practitioners informing them that all they have a lot to learn before they catch up with those experts here; and I don’t even have to mention the great overlapping leads.

The latter number a technicaller second to none, the other material tries to catch up, “A Core Undesired” with a portion of twisting speedy arrangements, “The Open Field” with dramatic build-ups on a pile of superbly-puzzling lashing technical riffs; “I Persist My Opinion” with a nice atmospheric break in the middle, among the raging head-spinning technicality surrounding it; the closing “Admiring Your Opponent” with a doze of spinning vortex-like guitars and a surprising memorable chorus which the hoarse vocals manage to pull out admirably.

And that’s it; just over half an hour of some of the most stunning displays of musical genius from the 90’s, the way Atheist used to do it not far back, both length and music-wise. To these ears Belgium has never produced anything as compulsively masterful and inspiring as these over 30-min of pure musical magick. It’s not the most original creation by any stretch, it actually recalls quite a few past exploits, but the effortless execution and the impeccable command of the musical instruments (those leads will haunt you, I promise) make it a breath of its own its value even bigger in consideration of the time when it was released:

the scene was barren, sparkles of classic genius were quickly extinguished with piles of angry groovisms. Even the mention of something technical or progressive caused waves of resentment by the new vogues which were ready to obliterate those attempts in their very spawning stage. Apparently they weren’t looking at Belgium at the time, the least likely place of all for something like that to spring up, and the guys were let to strike hard twice shattering the foundations of the established music laws, the cracks left later used by new forces to emerge (Unleashed Power, Mind-Ashes, Droys, Psycho Symphony, etc.).

What are these masters doing now? It’s hard to tell, but the band leader Rene Rokx was determined to carry on, and he moved to Holland where he was seen for a short time with the death/thrashers Retribution, before joining the death metal stalwarts Callenish Circle, and later their offspring State: Chaos. He also had another short spell, with the power/thrash metal formation Form whose more complex style could have grown into something even more interesting if they hadn’t epitomized an angrier and groovier approach for their sophomore effort.

In the end, after all has been said and done, the conclusion is that nothing beats a breath of chemicals, especially when they come from a contaminated place like Belgium. The radiation hasn’t spread very far yet, but some youngsters (Evil Shepherd (too many shepherds there; too many sheep as well probably…), Gae Bolga, In Chains, the brilliant technical thrashers From Beyond, the technical death metal wizards Prejudice, etc.) have shown their mutated teeth, more or less widely, and it would be interesting to see how far their ongoing metamorphosis will reach.