Disharmonic Orchestra
Not To Be Undimensional Conscious

If you are not used to particularly intricate sounds, if you are a passionate lover of melodic music, if linearity must be at least a fundamental component to make a song (in this case an album) enjoyable, this "Not To Be Undimensional Conscious" by Disharmonic Orchestra is not and I emphasize NOT at all for you.

Released in 1992, a golden period for techno death, a movement of which the album is a part, this "Not To Be Undimensional Conscious" represents the first change of style for a band in continuous evolution (they will indeed transition from the early years' Death/Grindcore to techno death, to then become one of the best expressions, in my opinion, of the avant-garde metal movement), which decides to shift its focus towards more technical and less "wild" metallic shores, where decidedly difficult-to-reproduce rhythms, tight and technical riffs, virtuosic bass lines often become the focal point of an album, which perhaps too often loses sight of the sense of melody: let me explain, the album itself is not bad, indeed there are tracks within it that arouse wonder and interest to the listener's ears, tracks like "Groove" or the instrumental "Time Frame" come to mind, where truly remarkable and pleasant melodic choices can be noticed, but more generally, it feels as though our musicians, despite wanting to distance themselves from their early grind days, are still concerned with showing their darker side; many of the tracks suffer instead from an excessive desire to overdo it, such as pieces like "Mind Seduction", where the guitar lines become confused (this however due to a really poor mix, causing the sounds to be particularly muddy, heavily influencing the final value of the album), the drums excessively hammering (with sometimes almost reckless use of the double pedal even for a prog/death track), and especially a scream/growl too extreme for a proposal that falls into such a musical genre.

Despite suffering from such "chaotic" moments the album still manages to be listened to, especially thanks to the aforementioned more melodic episodes, but it just cannot position itself among the best works in the genre, despite the technique and compositional abilities being present.

For now, three stars, a higher rating should be reserved for subsequent works, true pearls of refined metal.

P.S. Listen to the funky break in the very short "The Returning Of Living Beat", where the band truly shows how much genius, in this case unexpressed, they are capable of unleashing in the form of music.

Half a point more should be attributed to the album for the splendid lyrics and the truly lovely cover

Tracklist:

1) Perishing Passion

2) A Mental Aequence

3) Addicted Seas With Missing Pleasure

4) The Return Of Living Beat

5) Groove

6) Idiosyncrasy

7) Like Madness From Above

8) Time Frame

9) Mind Seduction