Atheist
Unquestionable Presence

THE REVIEW

ATHEIST - Unquestionable Presence INTRO: In music, there are periods when new musical genres emerge, when new bands try to express their emotions through different riffs from those that had delighted our ears up to that moment, when new topics are tackled that express anger and pain; one of these periods can be said to start from the second half of the '80s where albums like "Seven Churches" by Possessed and "Scream Bloody Goro" by Death opened the doors to that genre called death metal, with which the bands of the time tried to express their discontent with society through lyrics that exalt death and destruction. So we, the simple listeners, had labeled death metal and its bards as the expression of the most rotten part that one could bring out. But then a moment comes when you start to doubt those hypotheses that had been assumed until then, then a moment comes when you think: "Wow, but what have I been listening to until now?".

We can point to that moment as 1991, the zero point for death metal, a year in which one begins to doubt the bloodlust of death metal and in which that sonic violence becomes a reasoned violence where each note has a precise place in that sound wall that is a distant relative of that raw mass composed by the early Death and Possessed. These new theorists of death metal as an expression not of violence at the service of music but of music at the service of violence are Atheist, who along with Pestilence, Cynic, and even Death themselves, managed to change the targets and clichés that had classified death metal up to that point, giving rise to a race on how to classify this type of music: techno-death, prog-death, jazz-death, etc... The fact is that the album Unquestionable Presence by Atheist is something that goes beyond normal death metal, something that goes beyond the musical knowledge we ordinary listeners could have ever imagined. A sublime work in which the quartet manages to conceive eight simply superb tracks.

Each musician can squeeze the best out of their instrument to the point of doubting their human form; it is unimaginable how Shaefer can "scream" in that way and at the same time set up a sonic tapestry that, along with his companion Burkey, exalts their skill to the maximum. They manage to conceive tracks in which the two guitars are like two leading actors where neither steps on the other's toes and both work for the achievement of the piece, thus the two guitars overlap, intertwine, complement each other but never step on each other's toes, managing to span from death riffs to jazz riffs without problems; not to mention the rhythm section where it must have been an incredibly difficult task to play, leading one to think there might even have been some improvisation because Steve Flynn is simply frightening: with a minimal setup, he manages to create an incredible sonic chaos, going at insane speeds, pounding on everything he can, and creating drum parts that are complex and inextricable, so much so that at times it's hard to understand what he's doing, perhaps even he didn't know... And then there's Tony Choi on bass, shifting the group's style towards more jazz sounds, therefore not giving a rougher and more aggressive impact. In conclusion (thank God, someone might say), this is a work that revolutionized the entire death metal movement by developing a new way of conceiving anger and violence.

Therefore, a mandatory purchase for all those who go beyond the simplicity and frivolity of normal death metal and who seek that refinement that can truly move them...