Sceptic
Blind Existence

Rarely has a work left me as pleasantly amazed as this album by Sceptic, hailing from Krakow; if recent releases have eroded your faith in this musical genre, here's something capable of revitalizing and renewing it.

Unlike many compatriots (Vader, Decapitated, Trauma, Mutilation) who follow paths more or less trodden by bands from the start of the last decade (including Vader themselves), these guys, who have been playing since the mid-'90s, choose the path of experimentation, or at least an "open" musical proposal.
Their influences certainly do not lead to the birth of "futuristic" products such as those of the oft-mentioned 'Cephalic Carnage', but let's say they succeed in creating highly evocative atmospheres within a genre as fundamentally sterile as Death metal.

One of the most striking influences is undoubtedly that of the late-period Death, manifesting in the addition of melodic parts or pseudo-melodic ones. However, they differ greatly from the commonly understood melodic Death metal, also called "Swedish Death", from bands like 'Dark Tranquillity' and 'At The Gates'. What I am about to review is their debut album, released in 1999 following various Demos and EPs: the band shows they have all it takes to offer the public music of great value.
In fact, the songs are extremely structured and include "unplugged" deviations that cannot help but astonish even the most skeptical (pardon the pun) of critics. The Death they propose is not so much adulterated with other genres but with the refined musical sensitivity of the composers.

To realize their project, as is intuitive, these four Poles use excellent technique that propels them directly into the Olympus of great names. An immediate proof of this is the parts, practically written according to jazz standards: however, I don't want to be misunderstood, and I want to clarify that the sound in a strict sense is far from the contaminations of groups like Cynic and Atheist. The work of the drummer is remarkable, performing incredibly difficult numbers not for their own sake: indeed, no matter how uncountable the off-beats, the atmosphere reigns supreme, making even the flashiest technicalities expressive rather than cold.
The guitarist, assisted in the studio by a session man, however, constitutes the real foundation of the Sceptic project: alongside compositional skills far above average, we find infallible technique and rare good taste. Between scales, solos, and very powerful riffs, there are acoustic moments of strong emotional value. The bassist, who to be honest is not very prominent, plays an important role in creating a compact and massive sound. The singer is perhaps the group's sore spot: certainly very capable, but his screaming, midway between high and low, ends up dulling the highly significant tones of the work.

Personally, I would have preferred a slightly higher voice, which would have given the final touch in terms of emotion; our singer, in fact, is not very communicative even in "Painful Silente", a song devoid of Death sounds in which the singing is clean. The rhythms are always quite tight without exceeding and manage to range between accelerations and slowdowns. The riffing, likewise, mixes parts of maximum sonic intransigence with less violent parts, then leading to melodic openings with extraordinary impact; all of this is enhanced by a production that does justice to both the aggressive and less aggressive moments, perhaps giving slightly more weight to the latter.

In short, "already heard" is not a phrase that comes to mind when listening to "Blind Existence". Despite the abundance of virtuosities, as already mentioned, there is also room for an intense, melancholic, and nostalgic mood that keeps the CD far away from accusations of "insipidness". In conclusion, this album does not aim, like many similar ones, solely at power but seeks to develop a musically elaborated discourse that simultaneously manages to strike a listener's soul; this does not remain merely a commendable effort but becomes reality in the notes of these eight songs. It is hard not to be captivated.