Unquestionable Presence: Live at Wacken

Unquestionable Presence: Live at Wacken is not only a reasonable account of Atheist in the flesh, but a catalyst to consolidate the band's return to the field after about 15-16 years of general silence. That a band so loaded with interesting ideas was cut well short of its time after but three studio albums (all in close succession) was a travesty. But here was a hint at last that they would return and rearm themselves. Unfortunately, the package is saddled with a second disc that is nothing more than a compilation of previously released material. A veritable waste of space. Atheist was and is a highly specialized act with an appeal to a niche of the death and progressive metal audience that already owns this stuff, so just about anything would have been better. How about tossing the Beyond demo on as the second disc? Or a few unreleased, rare odds and ends? Nah, let's just give the people what they want to hear: what they've already heard, unless they've been living under a rock for two decades, but possibly even then...

Well, the live disc at least is admirable, with a nice resonance from an appreciable audience from the Wacken Open Air 2006 festival. It offers a clean tone in the guitars, and a thick, oozing undercurrent courtesy of Tony Choy, and a clear glimpse at Steve Flynn's jazzy transgressions. Kelly Shaefer doesn't sound as if he'd skipped a beat in the intermittent silence of the band's career, and might even have ramped up his mayhem (which I can confirm, now having listened through the new studio album Jupiter from 2010). The eight tracks are culled exclusively from the band's classic Piece of Time (1989) and Unquestionable Presence (1992) albums. Though I mildly prefer the latter in its studio incarnation, I must admit that the oldies are the best of the litter here: "Unholy War" and "Piece of Time" sound particularly vital and fresh, trailed by "On They Slay". The track listing does favor the Presence material, though, and of these: "Mother Man" and the title track sound the best, followed by "Your Life's Retribution", "An Incarnation's Dream", "And the Psychic Saw".

The compilation is delivered in chronological succession, and unlike the live set, all three albums are represented. Interestingly enough, all four of the Unquestionable Presence tunes from the set were included. "Piece of Time" and "Unholy War" are joined by "I Deny" and "Room With a View" from the debut album; "Mineral", "Water" and "Air" are the proxies for the divisive Dimensions. I won't deny that these are mostly positive selections from the catalog, and yet I can't help but feel ripped off, once more, by a label exploiting the resurgence of interest in one of their 90s-heavy artists (Roadrunner was guilty of a bunch of these). Granted, Relapse was not the band's original imprint, so the tracks had not appeared through them, but I assert that a better bonus disc might have vastly increased the value of this release for the fanbase. For the live disc alone, it might be worth hearing once or twice, though nothing deviates from or really exceeds the earlier studio fare. But this glass is only half full, and if a second disc was to be included, it should have been more worthwhile.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Disclaimer: I may sound slightly biased in this forthcoming review. Infact I'll lay my cards out now: Atheist are fucking amazing. "Piece Of Time" and "Unquestionable Presence", even 20 and 18 years after their respective releases, are still two benchmarks for the entire technical death metal genre and sound as brilliant today as they were misunderstood back in the early 90's in their native Florida and beyond. They split after 1993's "Elements" record before reforming in 2006 and starting off with a show at Wacken Open Air - a show I witnessed and remember as if it were yesterday. Well this live album, recorded that very day, and attached best of, is something I never expected to have the pleasure of reviewing so forgive me if I sound a little over-excited.

Now it seems all technical DM/deathcore bands these days claim that they propagate a style that helpfully combines 'technical' and 'listenable' in to one digestible package. Well I'm good to tell you now that that is complete bollocks. You may at this point disagree but listen to Atheist for yourself below and see for yourself why Kelly Shaefer, Tony Choy, Steve Flynn and pals are held in such high regard. Songs like "On They Slay", "And The Psychic Saw" and "Piece Of Time" are technical metal tour-de-forces, each travelling between moments of bass-led wonder, sonic riff heaven and the ultimate reason for Atheist's unarguable brilliance: downright catchy, listenable and enjoyable METAL songs.

The eight tracks comprising the live part of the album are taken wholly from "Piece Of Time" (3) and "Unquestionable Presence" (5), with the sound powerful and clear, heavy and concise. Diagrammatically dissecting their sound for you seems a bit silly when you could watch excellent footage of that show yourself - find here "Piece Of Time" and "And The Psychic Saw" as just two delicious examples. Convinced yet? I hope so.

The 'best of' portion of the package (disc 2) covers 11 songs including three from "Elements", a record that was so ahead of it's time I'm not sure even Atheist knew what was going on in it! Six of these eleven tracks are to be found on the live disc, making me wonder their selection slightly but thankfully the songs chosen are of such a spectacular quality only a death metal scrooge can find many arguments with it.

My initial experimentation with this band came when I bought their vinyl boxset (never the cheapest of items) before having heard a single second of their music, such is their reputation in the genre. It is now one of my most prized musical possessions. Anyone who claims to carry the flag of any strand of heavy metal has a duty to research the genres major footnotes, especially so for fans of more recent styles of (extreme) metal. Without the likes of Atheist and Death the 'technical death metal' world would be a radically different place, and short of vinyl boxsets for the complete nerds like myself, this release represents the best chance for everyone to discover a vital band in metal's history.

Originally written for Rockfreaks.net