Protestant

Protestant will kick your ass so hard that you won't be able to walk for weeks. It is a masterpiece of metallic hardcore, 90s metal, and a lot of other genres too, because it mixes them all.

The music here could be described as a mixture of metallic hardcore, hardcore punk, punk rock, thrash metal, death metal, grindcore, black metal, doom metal and overall plain kickass material. Riff-wise, this album is more varied and original than their former release, which is considered a groundbreaking album in powerviolence. They are less oriented in punk and Voivod-y style riffs, and instead show a huge variety of influences with providing one of the album's most notable creative points. The dissonant factor is still very prominent here, but instead of going full Slayer, they had their tempo changed every few bars which gives Protestant a somewhat progressive and chaotic atmosphere. Breakdowns were used here as well, but instead of being overused in a bad way (like most metalcore bands do today), they are used very sparsely and are unintrusive to the music and the album's atmosphere, such as the ones in "Recurring Nightmare #105" and "Blinders" which feature some of the best breakdowns of the first wave of metalcore.

Rorschach seemed very angry at the time of the recording, because this album features nothing but pure artsy hatred. The guy who did the vocals here changed his vocal style from a harsh type of cleans to a more schizopheric BM-ish type of scream, which works very well with the disjointed music that is prominent throughout the entire record. "Raw Nerve" and "In Ruins" show the anger in its most raw and powerful way, with these both songs immediately bringing the band's first album to mind. The bass work and the drumming in Protestant are nothing short of stellar here, with not being overshadowed by any instrument in the mix and are very creative and well performed too. There are numerous clean sections in use here and often trigger a very disturbing and dissonantic atmosphere- with the best example being "Ornaments" which is one of the most atmospheric tracks here.

As the title and the first line of the review suggest, this kicks ass, and with the top notch musicianship, the angry approach, and the disjointed atmosphere make this record an absolute classic of 90's metal, hardcore, metalcore, and music in general. Mandatory.