Pessimist

One of the last bands to approach this style with some class, Pessimist roar out pummeling death metal with the energy of fresh wound arterial gushing. Forget your Cannibal Corpse CD's; check out this underground talent.

Blood For the Gods

Lost Disciple

1999

Production: Meaty diligence to tone and synchronous resonance of bass.

Review: Progressive aggression from these masters of violence initiates the cycle of battery and its reflux, an absent sense of response which in turn triggers greater violence; this is the seasonal change of warfare against a foe larger than oneself. In Pessimist the violence keeps flowing as its gestures of demented immersion pour energetic repulsion into one another. Since this band builds sound from the speed metal-influenced framework of pounding and blasting percussive heavy death metal, this provides an aggressive but not unsubtle texturing of rhythms around the catchy melody of a song's central riff.

Most like a band somewhere between later Kataklysm and early Monstrosity, the pessimistic crew bash out songs that take chances with structure and dynamism. The result, while over the top, allows a fair amount of narrative motion to interrupt the even structuralism required to support riffs of equidistanced intervals, founding a platform for both unhinged experimentalism and the counterpoint of diligent tonal centricism that keeps the song centralized.

Tracklist:

1. Century of Lies
2. Unspeakable Terror
3. Psychological Autopsy
4. Demonic Embrace
5. Mens Rea
6. Whore of the Undead
7. Unborn (Father)
8. Tunnel Rats
9. Wretched of the Earth
Length: 38:30

Percussion reductive beats slam up next to a panopoly of guitar textures which drive riffs forward through multiple evolutions of the same idea, allowing related themes to exist concurrently with their conclusions. Influences from three generations of metal creep in, from the heavy metal stadium rocker riff that crests one of the later songs to the jazz-like experimentations in harmony from earlier in the album. Highly refined lead guitar knows when to stitch itself alongside the fabric of song and when to dissonant and wailing pull out and away so it can crash traversing sonic boundaries.

If you like forceful, gut-blasted vocals with low-end cleanup power, the staccato cadence of these militant lyrics as sung into half-chant, half-throat delivers a complementary rhythm track to the surging of guitars. Where this band really delights is in keeping an original idea in "heavy" death metal alive, but through careful structure and alignment, isolating the necessary counteractive impulses within a careful gatefield of tasteful riffs, intelligent transitions, and pummeling collaboration between texture and percussion.