ATHEIST: ELEMENTS (1993)
1) Green; 2) Water; 3) Samba
Briza; 4) Air; 5) Displacement; 6) Animal; 7) Mineral; 8) Fire; 9) Fractal
Point; 10) Earth; 11) See You Again; 12) Elements.
According to some sources, we owe the existence
of Elements only to the band's
contractual obligations: having disbanded in 1992, Atheist came together one
last time (or so it seemed at the moment) only to put this album together so
that they could get out of their contract with Metal Blade records without a
serious headache. In addition, Kelly Shaefer had developed carpal tunnel
syndrome and was unable to play lead guitar, so the band had to recruit a third
guitarist, Frank Emmi, to take over fifty percent of lead playing duties.
Hence, conditions for creativity flow were definitely less than ideal.
That said, Elements
sounds quite far removed from a generic, disinterested contractual obligation.
As may be noticed by just glancing at the song titles, it is a concept album —
other than songs dedicated to each element in particular and all of them at
once, the band throws the notions of «animal» and «mineral» into the mix, and
starts things out with a general eco-anthem (ʽGreenʼ), although, actually, the
majority of the songs here have an ecological undercurrent: it would be fairly
hard to find someone representing the interests of Greenpeace more accurately
than this bunch of death metal warriors. One notch scored for dedication.
Second, of the three «classic era» Atheist
albums, Elements represents the
biggest departure from the formula — a disappointment for those stark fans
who'd want more of the same, but a bit of a relief for the reviewer, who
finally has to withdraw the most troublesome criticism: that of all the songs
merging together into one big, unsegmentable lump. This problem is now overcome
in a simple, but working way: many of the songs are separated by small
interludes that show the band branching out in different directions — ʽSamba
Brizaʼ features the band's dexterous rhythm section backed by guest pianist
David Smadbeck; ʽDisplacementʼ and ʽFractal Pointʼ present a couple of
deeply-distorted, but lyrical slow guitar solos; and ʽSee You Againʼ has some
pretty, echo-laden acoustic picking. Nothing too amazing, but yes, we do need
these delimiters.
As for the songs themselves, most of the
textbook thrash attitude has by now dissipated completely. Where, in the past,
they would alternate jazzy time signatures with breakneck chugga-chugga
passages, they now consistently keep the odd signatures throughout the pieces —
never a dull moment for the drummer boy. «Catchiness» still hardly appears on
the menu, and, for that reason, the new approach is not necessarily better than
the old one: the themes are still quite hard to memorize, and the emotional
effect is completely uniform regardless of whether they are singing about
water, air, fire, or earth — this is probably the biggest conceptual mistake of
this conceptual album. Then again, they are not singing of the nice spiritual
properties of these elements, but rather of various catastrophes, man-made or
natural, associated with them, and catastrophes are always catastrophes, be
they floods, quakes, or fires, so that could be one possible cop-out.
We do have more individual markers placed on
the songs than we used to. The Latin acoustic part in ʽWaterʼ, for instance,
which does not so much replace the metal basis of the song as it flows in and
out of it (flows, hear that?). The
odd little guitar-led merry-go-round in the bridge section of ʽWindʼ, whirling
around the speakers (whirling, mind
you). The «siren»-mode guitar playing on ʽFireʼ; the monkey laugh guitar
imitation on ʽAnimalʼ — these are all mostly just minor flourishes, but they
are at least worth a mention. The best guitar leads, by the way, are on
ʽMineralʼ, where each solo is introduced by a gorgeously ominous set of trills
that I'm only too happy to add to my very small collection of «finger-flashing
bits with genuine evocative power». Granted, I am not too sure what it is
exactly that they evoke, but does it really matter? That's why we have the word
«evocative» in the lexicon in the first place.
It is hardly a big surprise that, overall, Elements tends to be rated poorer than
its predecessors, but that is just because it is a little harder to headbang to
it — you have to learn quite specific headbanging moves, and it can take a long
time. The band members, judging by the live backlog they would perform upon the
later reunion, never thought all that much of it, either — perhaps they, too,
were sorry about going so far in the «Latin / jazz» direction that the «thrash»
sign all but disappeared from the horizon. But on the large scale of things,
these arguments seem rather petty — after all, just because the speed rates are
slightly lower and the drum parts slightly more syncopated does not mean that Elements does not rock just as hard. I
give it the same thumbs up as everything else, and I appreciate the will to
change, particularly when it is manifested on an album they did not even
intend to make in the first place.
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