Nonexistent

Well, after Mortification and Incubus, Living Sacrifice was the next christian extreme metal band that i checked out, and I'm sure happy as fuck I did! Believe me, you will miss an excellent album if you avoid "Nonexistent" just because of the lyrics. The music on the other hand, kills and rapes the living shit out of your ears, as simple as that! Let's get started:

First of all, Nonexistent was not the first album by Living Sacrifice which spined some rounds on my pc, I already knew their s/t debut album which was a decent and riff-filled thrash metal album (especially the first track "Violence"), but on Nonexistent, Living Sacrifice moved to a more death metal orianted sound with deep growls, down-tuned guitars and utterly blasting drums, heavy basslines and spiritual lyrics. This album starts with a small little intro with many speech-samples and kicks in with "Enthroned". No atmosphere, no fucking technicality or whatever, just fast-forward death metal from the frist to the last riff with some slow and catchy parts. Though it sounds like typical 90's death metal, Living Sacrifice uses some acoustic guitar just like Gorguts. Talking about Gorguts, if you'd ask me of bands that sound similar to this, Gorguts would be the first band I'd have to recommend. Nonexistent sounds like an perfect mixture of "Considered Dead" and "The Erosion of Sanity", even the vocals remind me on Luc Lemay, mostly on Enthroned.

Slowed down, yes. Enthroned was a fast song, but everything after that slows really down, like a stoned version of Gorguts' second album. You have the heavyness, you have the utterly-destroying drums and the inhumane vocals, but the speed is missing, though, it does not ruin this album. After Enthroned and Nonexistent, we hear their third song "Haven of Blasphemy" and here is the stigma of the album. Most probably, this was the first Living Sacrifice song which had some metalcore influence in it, mostly the riffs. They just don't really start off, good ideas and all, but they just don't kick in, they rather play a solo, which is so quiet that you don't really hear it. Though, after that tiny solo, the drums and riffs just shred the shit out of everything, only for a halft minute though, that's when the song ends and the album continues with ...To Nothing. And like I mentioned, this album stays slow and catchy, what suprised me a lot, because it started of very fast.

This album is an exellent piece of death metal, but the production is good and horrible. The vocals sound amazing, the riffs are delicious and the bass is heavy as it gets. The drums kick in and out and the acoustic guitar that is used in almost every song sounds beautiful, but, the solos just ruin it. Not because they suck or anything, no they actually sound very good, but I guess while the mixing process they fucked things up and the result of this, is that you don't hear the solos very well, very muted and quiet. Sad actually. Nevertheless, this is some of the best death metal I heard in a long time, and you don't get better riffs than this if you look for some slowe death metal (slow death metal, not death/doom metal). Enthroned, Atonement, Chemical Straightjacket and Without Distinction are the four songs on this release with fast parts in it, but the rest is slowed down and very technical death metal that reminds you on a mixture of the first two gorguts albums, just with less speed.

Nonexistent is an album that holds contradiction among its style of playing and style of lyrics, but that contradiction in a way makes sense to how Living Sacrifice conveys it within their music. This album is Christian themed, a concept often ignored by metalheads as it is considered blasphemous to what makes metal, metal. Living Sacrifice though has showed that some genres and themes can be mixed successfully together, in this case, Christianity and death metal. They play a holy driven death/thrash metal sound that would probably be the soundtrack to some wrathful action by God himself. It’s a solid effort by the band; they clearly were capable of creating some good music backed by decent musicianship (and I use that term lightly) and sadly after their third release “Inhabit” they go down the path of metalcore.


The sound of Living Sacrifice this time around has a better production, though most bands suffer the first album sucky production syndrome, I find it annoying to listen to music that sounds like it was recorded with some 2.00$ tape recorder. Most of the elements in this are audible (besides the bass) in Nonexistent and the music quality is slightly better but it still sounds pretty raw (the song “Chemical Straightjacket” is a prime example of this.) As for the basic style of Nonexistent, it is heavily influenced by Florida’s death metal scene and it overall sounds a lot like Obituary’s Cause of Death. Thankfully some of the thrash elements in this album keep it from sounding like an Obituary clone. Out of all of Living Sacrifice’s releases this is definitely their most heavy and probably their best work.


The vocals on this album are one of its biggest setbacks. Before vocalist D.J on their self titled album had a thrashier style to his vocals and it sounded like a good start for the most part. On this album he uses a “zombie/undead” sounding vocal, but his vocal talent on here is not even average, he executes the sound poorly. If I were to compare it to anything it sounds like a failed attempt of mimicking Obituary’s vocalist, the vocal sound just fades around a tune too much and it gets pretty annoying at times. This flaw in itself will more than likely kill the listening experience to ones that are very picky about vocals (and most are) so unless you can somehow stand it like I do don’t even buy this. Then again it’s probably a blessing for those that don’t wish to hear the Christian themed lyrics.


The guitar work on this album is its main strong point, Living Sacrifice managed to play some pretty good death/thrash on this album. Fans of Florida’s death metal scene as well as some thrash collectors will want to listen to this record for that purpose. Riffs on here are what Living Sacrifice does best, not one track on here makes any repetition of a riff, and they put some complexity into each one to keep it interesting. Riffs mix a main hammering thrash sound along with a “grinding” death metal riff behind it. Even though the vocals seem to try to mimic Obituary the guitarists don’t seem to (I own Cause of Death, though there is some similarities there's no copycat song playing going on here). Off and on through this album they mix a few great instrumental sections on here such as in the songs “Void Expression,” “Atonement,” and “Distorted”. The only problem I noticed on the guitar work was that the bass was not at all audible; the only instance of bass I heard on here was at the 1:10 marker on “Atonement”, and the record would have been a lot better if it had this element. There are solos to speak of in this album but they sound like a far lower tuned version of Obituary’s solos (partly due to the production of this album).


As for the drummer’s talent on Nonexistent it’s just a little above average, there’s nothing significant to his talent, it’s just a satisfying effort and nothing more. The playing goes along with a song’s particular atmosphere using a lot of bass beats on the heavier portions and using more of a cymbal approach on instrumental sections. He adds much needed heaviness and atmosphere were its appropriate and nothing gets repetitive in his playing to say the least.


What makes the contradiction of Christian death metal less of an oxymoron on this album is the lyrical themes Living Sacrifice choose to use. It’s not about death in the physical sense, it’s about death and decay in the spiritual sense (though it’s not audible, the idea is still there). Songs in particular that display this are “Haven of Blasphemy” and “…To Nothing”. The songs depict properties of self delusion and vile sin that humanity often commits. They also depict destroying those false visions and to better see Christ’s wisdom before they begin walking down the path of spiritual decay. The songs are overall well written it’s a shame one can’t hear them through D.J’s zombie vocals. It’s not very preachy like “Serve God or burn in hell nonbeliever!” but they do focus mainly on finding salvation away from sinful decay. It is a bit of an abstract sense of death metal structure, but the entire album conveys the “death” part fairly well.


This is a borderline solid/crap album from an interesting band, it’s a shame quite a few of its elements are out of place on this album or else it would have scored in the upper 80’s so it will receive a 65% instead. This will be their last effort in death/thrash metal before completely going death metal on “Inhabit” then to thrashcore from there on at their release of “Reborn.” Fans of Christian themed music might find some interest in this as well as some death/thrash listeners. The album is not worth more than about five or six dollars, or just download "Atonement", "Distorted", "...To Nothing" and "Void Expression,"

There are talented bands that stay within the realms of their own style of music, and then there are talented bands that explore other styles of music, but still manage to retain the sheer volume of energy and power. Living Sacrifice is the perfect example of the latter.

“Nonexistent” is probably the heaviest album by LS (which, at the time was four members) and offers some of the finest death/thrash around. No questions asked. Every song is constructed very well and is only accentuated by the brilliant recording.

Simply put, the vocals are gargantuan and sound much like an angry zombie’s moaning from a horror movie, except these vocals probably better emulate the “undead” than the undead themselves. However, this could possibly make a few inexperienced metalheads weary.

Instrument-wise, LS is phenomenal:

Guitarwork is outstanding, and solos are executed very well and feature heavy use of whammy bar. Jason Truby and Rocky Gray also use some very strange scale patterns which actually fit perfectly. The acoustic guitar interludes which sometimes occur are also very entrancing and bring a whole new level of character to the album.

Behind the drumkit, Lance Garvin has proven himself worthy to be deemed a mastermind, and definitely showcases some serious talent. His drumming is remarkable and very well executed.

Unfortunately, as awesome as this album sounds, audible bass would have been nice.

Nonetheless, this is some serious class-act pummeling, and the lack of bass is hardly a problem. “Nonexistent” should not be overlooked as it is definitely a great album.