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.

No matter how many people say it, it's still unbelievable how so many fantastic bands get completely ignored. If you visit Sputnikmusic, you will find (at the time of writing) only fourteen votes spread across Tourniquet's seven albums. How does this happen when many bands get 1,500 votes for a single album? It's certainly not because Tourniquet are Christian, since other "Jesus Metal" bands get far more votes. Tourniquet has made some of the most creative thrash the world has ever seen on this release.

At their very core, the band plays thrash. However, a lot of the music is scarcely recognizable as thrash because of the copious layers of sophistication added to its palette. Most Tourniquet fans know that their medical lyrics could make you snatch up a dictionary (Gelatinous Tubercles of Purulent Ossification? Huh?), there's several vocal styles ranging from a Tom Araya shout and Scott Kelly-like croak to a falsetto wail and midrange normal voice, and that there are subtle classical music nods in the riffing. Less obvious is just HOW complex this music is: I'm experienced with progressive metal and I couldn't detect some of these niceties for several listens.

Very few bands can pull so many random ideas together and make them all work in their own places. Even the lyrics come from a direction you don't expect: who would dare to put these words together, and who could make them into an awesome song that also praises Jesus? By now, you probably want to know exactly what all this raving is about. Each instrument's envelope has been pushed, not just vocals, not just guitar.

The guitars, as I've touched on, are the reason why Tourniquet are sometimes called neo-classical. The riffs could make a classic thrash fan do a spit take (in a good way). You might not think of this as classical music, but Debussy wouldn't agree. Some prominent examples: Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance, 0:00 to 0:17; Gelatinous Tubercles, 1:57 to 2:17; The Skeezix Dilemma, 6:47 to the end.

You won't hear too much of the bass until your jaw drops. Tourniquet's then-bassist Victor Macias has a jazzy feel to his playing which is usually back in the mix but can also be heard playing on his own - and completely stealing your teeth out. Phantom Limb, 0:00 to 0:26, is pretty much jazz.

Finishing out the instrumental section are Ted Kilpatrick's drums. How does he get so ignored even though he’s been voted HM Magazine’s Favorite Drummer 10 years in a row? I was doubled over in ecstasy during pretty much all the songs. The son of a doctor, Kilpatrick is responsible for the big words and a good deal of the frighteningly exact songwriting. Every snare hit and bass drum, every cymbal hit and ride is where it should be. There’s even blast beats during Dissonance’s chorus and in the outro of Incommensurate. Gelatinous Tubercles (how many times do I have to say this name?) might be his best performance on the entire album. In the first half, he uses a steady 4/4 hi-hat beat, but hits the bass drum twice each time, and in the second half he moves between all parts of his kit quicker than a frog on a barbecue.

Hang on to your seat: There are four vocal styles, again noted above as a shout, falsetto, normal and croak. Also seen on Gelatinous Tubercles is a vocoder voice; more on how this works will be discussed later. The shout is seen in the heavier sections and has great speed; the falsetto is used much less here but can still be found here and there; the normal and croak are used in slower sections. A particular vocal highlight is at Dissonance, 2:42: the general downbeat tone of the normal voice is at its best, fitting these lyrics perfectly: “When red is green and green is grey / you’ve failed the test in column A.”

And now maybe it’s a good time for lyrics discussion. They are all superbly written. Each song means something very important and each experiment works to further the messages rather than get in their way. “Phantom Limb” reminds us that we can’t really live without God, comparing a leg to our relationship with Him and that cutting off God is like not having a leg. “Ruminating Virulence” is about our frustration with the Lord when something is taken away from us, here our ability to walk. Enjoy what you can still do even if you’re confined to a wheelchair: “When you put away bitterness / you will see what you have missed”. “Gelatinous Tubercles…” (again!) warns against nicotine addiction by using the vocoder voice as the voice of a former addict who can no longer speak normally. There are also stories about Job and Samson on this record.

However, the greatest composition which sums up Tourniquet’s entire musical vision is the ending track, “The Skeezix Dilemma”. From a pretty Spanish guitar at the start to a bizarre circus theme, and then to a thunderously heavy passage with Guy Ritter’s loudest and most menacing shouts yet, the song could be called a classical piece. By now, the tale is showing itself as a dark, almost bleak tale of child abuse, where a small board game called “Uncle Wiggily” and space 109 on the board signifies the broken home where the child lives. Finally, when he has to advance to 109 again, the young boy reaches out to God, who in the future will help him defeat this demon. But for now, the tale has to end open-ended. The remaining three minutes are Tourniquet’s “Orion” – this is MUSIC. Despite the joyous finish to the song, Tourniquet has not just brought closure to this story, but leaves space open for it to continue later.

Most bands are content just to finish their stories, but this risk proves, if it can be doubted at this point, that Kilpatrick and company are true composers that deserve to be noticed. Despite only one slightly weaker track (En Hakkore isn’t quite as good as the others), “Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance” is a musical masterwork which should be required listening for any Christian, or even any music fan. If you’re a stubborn nonbeliever, then I guess Tourniquet will just convert you. It’s just that good.

Many Tourniquet fans consider this release their magnum opus I definitely do not concur. While being a well thought out album Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance focuses even more on the complexity and progressive metal usage while not putting as much focus on the entertainment value as their first two albums. The album length is just under an hour which is too long, and the songs themselves have lost almost all of the thrash presence from their previous releases. The sound on Pathogenic is a continuation of Psycho Surgery with Tourniquet’s trademark medical terminology/song titles and mainly progressive song structures with a hint of mid-tempo thrash.

The bands performance is very good they are certainly one of the most talented Christian bands I have heard and certainly very original. Since the songs are slower the bass is the most audible it has been for Tourniquet up to this point, and it adds some very creative parts. The drumming is excellent; guitar is one of the weaker parts of the album making quite a few uninspiring riffs and leads. Overall Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance is also heavier than Tourniquet’s first two releases. Tourniquet even tries out a ten minute song The Skeezix Dilemma which is a two part song the second part is on Tourniquet’s 2000 release Microscopic View of a Telescopic Realm; the lyrical approach is Tourniquet’s weirdest yet.

Overall an average album in terms of entertainment value, though the songwriting is certainly above average and extremely skilled. The best songs are the title track, Ruminating Virulence, Theodicy On Trial, and En Hakkore Descent Into The Maelstrom is also a cool little instrumental. I recommend this album to fans of Tourniquet and progressive metal only.

-11 points because of being a boring in places
-9 points a lot of filler
-3 guitars could have been used to much more effect

The 90’s saw the peak for christian thrash bands’ popularity. ‘Pathogenic’ was the follow up for Psycho Surgery and you can tell this is one of the best thrash metal albums with progressive and classical influences.

Pathogenic Occular Dissonance has a powerful song structure and deals with spiritual blindness. Cool riffs and powerful drumming and amazing tempo changes. Very aggressive yet progressive influenced song.

Phantom Limb follows and the riffs here are just astonishing, the guitar effects and solos are but superior. This song deals with medical allegories about disability.
Ruminating Virulence again has powerful rhythm sections, amazing tempo changes and aggression as well.

Spectrophobic dementia goes next and here the riffs with the bass and drums following make the perfect match for the song flow. This song deals with post war traumas.

And the most bizarre song ever heard by me! ‘Gelatinous Tubercules…’ is…well, what a song! A little hard to dig, but once you begin understanding it, it grows on you. The ‘alien’ voice by the is all but bizarre, the drumming and guitar driven first part is so good and the vocals fit even better, since they are more like Lenaire’s screamings than singing but they are powerful enough to fit the songs. The second part, the ultra complex tempo changes is beyond words, and then the ending with the super cool again drumming and guitar driven rhythm makes a pristine constructed progressive thrash with classical influences...ahhh, song!

The second part is more regular songs ala Slayer or even Sepultura with some bass driven interludes ‘til we get to the closer: The Skeezix Dilemma and the allegorical children’s abuse theme is an epic anthem with fast guitar solo, Spanish vocal interludes, classical guitar added, slow pace at the beginning, not to mention the creepy circus from the beginning which sets the mood for the song and giving it a creepy atmosphere to perfectly close the album with a awesome kickass rhythm section.

A top thrash metal album that perfectly mixes power, aggression, complexity, atmospheres and experimental effects and passages to make you feel worthy of appreciate speed/thrash metal in their entire splendor!

Wow, am I EVER pleased. It is so hard to find a good Christian metal band, let alone Christian Thrash. Personally, I felt that these days, the best you ever got was Eternal Decision, which no offense to them, isn’t much. The hardest thing to find is original criteria which SO many Christian metal bands don’t have. I feel that that is possibly one of the reasons why it gets such a bad rep in metal. Also because metal is not exactly the perfect “fit” for (conformist) Christians. However, that’s not the case with these guys; Tourniquet has the best form of Christian Thrash. In a lot of ways, which has become really hard to admit, I even find these guys better than Believer, and they happen to be one of my favorite bands of all time. These guys have STRONG thrash metal, let alone, STRONG metal.

Their work with this album is technical, strong, heavy, melodic, and downright original. What these guys have managed to do is to deliver thrash that doesn’t all sound the same. It’s actually very different sounding, even in styles of thrash. Sometimes you get your Slayer-LA-thrash, other times you can get that kind of Megadeth sound. Heck, you even get a little Groove Metal every so often on this one. I feel that though, the strongest, you can find a lot of a Believer influence in the music, particularly in the vocals, and talent of course.

Personally, I cannot really find anything wrong with this album, other than sometimes the titles/lyrics. When you read the lyrics, it seems more than obviously that they just used a thesaurus half the time, to maybe make themselves sound smarter. Not saying they’re dumb, or anything, not my judge, but you can definitely tell that a lot of those big words were really forced.

Anyways, getting to the bottomline, this is overall an amazing album, and definitely an amazing band. Vocals are great, Riffs are great, bass is fine, drums are fine. The production is cure crisp. Even non Christian people would love this, be it Satanists, Athiests, you name it. This almost deserves the rank of a Classic (Christian) Thrash metal album.