Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance

In the early 90’s, Tourniquet (as well as most other Christian metal bands from the American West Coast) was extremely productive, and this is the bands third release since 1990. Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance is released in ’92 and although the line-up is the same as the previous Psycho Surgery-album, this one sees the band being a bit more focused in their songwriting. Where Psycho Surgery experimented with genres, Pathogenic experiments within a genre.

Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance is a monster of a thrash metal album. The productive is amazing! The instruments are clear – even the bass has a great level in the mix, and is audible for most of the album. Victor Macias has a great, bouncy sound to his bass, and has some standout moments on the record. The most obvious one being the distorted bass part on the title-track.
When it comes to the drumming, the bands main songwriter Ted Kirkpatrick does his most varied and technical drumming, he had ever done up to this point. The drum-sound is huge and full and Kirkpatrick does countless fills where he bangs on every drum, cymbal and cowbell imaginable. He does fill after fill on “Incommensurate”, has a staccato way of playing most of his drums, as it follows the melody of the guitar on “Gelatinous…” and on the few doom-parts of the album, he delivers a heavy rhythm using many different cymbals.
Regarding the vocals, Guy Ritter and guitarist Gary Lenaire manages these, just like they did on Psycho Surgery. We also get to hear bassist Macias more hardcore thrash vocals on “Incommensurate” and both him and guitarist Mendez do a horrifying over-layer of vocals towards the mid-section of “The Skeezix Dilemma”.

Speaking of “The Skeezix Dilemma” – this is a ten minute monster dealing with the abuse of children. It has a 12-string acoustic guitar intro, “circus-music”, a really heavy mid-section where all four vocals are singing (five if you include the cat that gives a haunting sound), an instrumental/acoustic Christmas hymn and ends with a 2, 5 minute outro jam-section before it fades to silence. And this is what TQT are all about – they experiment a lot within the thrash genre. We get a super funky intro to “Phantom Limb”, almost a death metal chorus on the title-track, “robotic” voices on “Gelatinous…” and even a 1,5 minute drum solo on the instrumental “Descent into the Maelstrom”. "Dsecent..." is a homage to Edgar Allan Poe and it will not be the last time the band honors the late writer in their songwriting.

Throughout the whole album, Lenaire and Mendez delivers their best solos this far and rips through one awesome thrash riff after another. Listen to the odd intro riff to “Ruminating Virulence”, the bouncy riff towards the end of “Spectrophobic Dementia” and the melodic part in the chorus of “Exoskeletons”. And on top of all of that, Ritter delivers his best vocal performance yet, especially on “Exoskeletons” and “Phantom Limb”.

Tourniquet has matured a lot since their debut two years earlier. They have a rather unique sound and their lyrics are very well written. Most of the song-titles here sound like Carcass leftovers, but there isn’t much grind to be found here. TQT are a Christian metal band, and it does shine through the lyrics. Do not expect them to be as confronting as they were on their debut Stop the Bleeding (maybe except for “Theodicy on Trial”), but enjoy how they tell stories with a social commentary. Stories about people in some sort of extreme situation, battling with paralysis, dementia, poverty and abuse.

This is the last Tourniquet album with the classic line-up. A shame, as this is TQT at their very, very best, and if only they had released this five years earlier, it would have been an all out thrash metal classic, just before the genre became out-dated and groove became the new hype. Tourniquet realized this as well, and left their thrash roots after this release.

Note: The re-release by Metal Blade in 1993 has a bonus track. It is taken from Tourniquet’s 1993 release “Live in the Studio”, and it's a cover of Kirkpatrick’s former band Trouble’s “The Tempter”. It has Bloodgood’s vocalist as a guest vocalist, as Ritter had left the band at this point. The song is a monster of a doom track and it is super heavy and once again, Macias and Mendez delivers some very brutal vocals.