Visions of Emptiness

The excavation work of the US underground continues unabated, and more gems inevitably resurface to the fans’ utter delight. Emerge Premonition, an obscure outfit from Texas, in the late-80’s, a bunch of musicians full of enthusiasm and genuine passion for the progressive/technical side of the genre. Eager to catch the last train before metal’s metamorphosis took a fuller shape, they shoot their debut demo in 1989, a 4-tracker replete with fast, energetic riffs thriving on a complex, ambitious base. The 3-year gap which followed between this first strike and the demo reviewed here must have been prompted by the turbulent for metal times during which a lot of things happened on the music scene, most of them not necessarily positive.

Anyway, the inspiration is still here, if not even bigger than before, and with six brand new songs closing on just under half an hour the band produce one of the most impressive underground recordings to grace the thrash metal world in the 90’s. Starts the opening title-track, and the listener will be pleasantly surprised to encounter a marvellous symbiosis between heavy, squashing riffs and mind-stimulating time and tempo-shifts on top of some gorgeous intricate melodies. Very technical by at the same time fairly intense, the guys’ approach would please a wider gamut of thrash metal fans the technical side of whom will have the time of their life on “False Conviction”, a spastic amorphous composition with some of the most stupendous technical guitars around those aptly assisted by the virtuoso lead sections and the brilliant, thundering bass bottom. “Execration” concentrates more on the dynamic, headbanging side of the band’s repertoire and fast lashing riffage will overwhelm the listener those challenging formulas turning into a maze of elaborate accumulations in the middle.

“The Secrecy Among Us” is a vitriolic, hectic technicaller with busy crescendos creating a lot of intricate aggression again the mid-section creating the hardest to decipher moments; a seldom achieved “marriage” of brutal shreds and mind-scratching progressions. “Darkened Destiny” carries on with the complex, technical “slaughter” not forgetting about a couple of raging rhythm sections which start dominating the landscape at some stage making this cut a really handsome slab of intensity and technicality. No slouching on the closing ”Multiples of Identity”, another immaculate display of the guys’ skills, a fairly busy number with constantly overlapping rhythms, stop-and-go sections, and furious fast-paced lead harmonies: a true feast for the technical/progressive metal lovers...

The band effortlessly create the more aggressive analogue to the intricate tapestries of Watchtower, Deathrow and Mekong Delta even managing to reach the schizophrenic rifforamas of Atheist on the dizziest moments thus recalling another forgotten act from The States: Terrahsphere. Premonition’s delivery is more technical than the one of the latter outfit, and better organized as the label “chaos” never comes to mind the band carefully weaving their elaborate visions which are anything but “empty”. The demo title was perhaps a reflection of the gloomy, bleak future which the metal genre was staring at globally at the time, the musicians wise enough to foresee the unpleasant compromises they were to make if they wanted to sound relevant and to reach the coveted official release stage.

The “Brutal Healing” demo was next in line, released several months after the one reviewed here, and it already showed signs of transformation with an angrier, noisier approach. Still, the technicality was present all over and one would have a really hard time finding another band who were so successful in giving such a hefty technical twist to the aggro-trends of the 90’s, making this recording a captivating listen from beginning to end (imagine a blend of Pantera and Realm). The guys lasted long enough for the production of one more effort, the 3-track “The Human Condition” demo, two years later, before splitting up. Their first three demos were compiled under the “Visions of Emptiness” title in 2014; hopefully a sign of rising from the ashes and embarking on another defiant journey, this time in much more optimistic for the genre times.