Slaughtering the Faithful

The first impression I got from this wasn't overly positive; it has kind of a dullard's aesthetic. Silly title, typical Angry Metal Album (tm) cover, icky affiliations with Angelcorpse and Monstrosity, you know the drill. The actual content was a pleasant surprise; I guess I should have expected something from everyone else echoing a similar reaction upon hearing Pessimist's music, but oh well.

Pessimist plays an uncommon fusion of black and brutal death metal (the tech kind, not the slam kind), which is really a pretty elegant idea when you think about it but rarely attempted by anyone. The way Pessimist does it should be a lesson: contrasting more ambient, textured black metal riffs with explosive technicality (and a lot of blast beats underneath). The execution itself is kind of similar to older Cryptopsy, though the sound is obviously quite different; the melodic style here is much more 'normal' extreme metal than Cryptopsy ever was. Now, despite how this is pretty much just a 1:1 mixture of brutal death and black metal, with few unique elements, it's executed remarkably well. There's not much in the way of memorability, but the Aeonish intensity of the music really carries it through its mercifully short running time.

Some people have commented that the production on this album is somewhat weak, and while I see where they're coming from, it's not really a problem. It's cloudy and somewhat indistinct but not in an irritating, Nileish way; it essentially sounds like early '90s death metal, which makes sense. Despite the cloudiness, there's no inability to tell exactly what the guitars are doing at any point, and what they're doing is usually really cool; there's a whole array of Mardukish or NYDMish riffs on display here, and what they lack in memorability they more than make up for in ferocity.

Really nothing that's done on 'Slaughtering The Faithful' is new, but the novelty of the combination and the elegance of the execution allows it to rise above the pack of extreme metal hangers-on. I guess there's nothing I can say that will articulate why this is really cool, so I suppose I just recommend it a lot.

Everyone has death metal bands they love. It may be Incantation, or Suffocation, or Nile, or Cryptopsy that get constant rotation in their CD players. But what if you're looking for something new?
Pessimist - Slaughtering the Faithful is the answer.

Basically what you have here is a group of 4 talented musicians. Sure, what Pessimist is doing is not original, but does that make it not enjoyable or talented? NO, it doesn't. The drumming on this album is thrashy, typical double-bass, alot of blasts that arn't overused to the point of boringness, and if I'm not mistaken, these drums are untriggered. They sound very raw (but that may just be the sound of the triggers? I don't think he's going so fast that he would need triggers though). The bass is pretty much lost in the mix (how suprising for a death metal release huh?haha), but every once and awhile you will be treated with a short 5-10 second bass solo, which is a nice touch. The bassist also does vocals, which are compromised of very low growls (no high's here, to my disappointment).

Now the guitars on this album simply rule. One time I sat down at 11 at night and listened to just the guitars on this cd the whole way through. The riffs are insanely fast, with fast thrash solos, fast melodies, and alot of fast fastness. Speed and brutality, nothing you havn't heard before, but it is done right!

Tired of listening to the same Vader albums over and over? Buy this CD. It's not special, it's not groundbreaking, but it's damn enjoyable to listen to.

BAPTIZED IN BLASPHEMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!