ATHEIST: UNQUESTIONABLE PRESENCE: LIVE AT WACKEN (2009)
1) Unquestionable Presence; 2)
On They Slay; 3) Unholy War; 4) Your Life's Retribution; 5) An Incarnation's
Dream; 6) Mother Man; 7) And The Psychic Saw; 8) Piece Of Time.
Thirteen years passed in a flash and finally
Atheist are back! Well, sort of. This lineup, assembled for some rejuvenating
touring in 2006, includes Kelly Schaefer (vocals and rhythm guitar only, still
suffering from the carpal tunnel thing), old time drummer Steve Flynn — the
band's major source of pride and joy, bassist Tony Choy, and two more
completely new guitarists coming from Gnostic (there should be a clever pun on
the importance of going from «Gnostic» to «Atheist», but I don't have the time
to come up with one).
To commemorate the glorious fact of the reunion
and gain extra time while trying to assemble a new studio album, Schaefer and
the kids released this «experience», which is really a 2-CD package: the first
CD records a complete live performance at Wacken Open Air in 2006, and the second
CD is just a «best-of» compilation, in case the veteran fans already wore out
their old albums a decade ago and the new crowds need a quick introduction to
the art of merging the unmergeable (death metal and avantgarde jazz) in an age
when heavy players usually preferred to merge the mergeable (blues metal and
mainstream pop).
Anyway, the result is an obvious rip-off: the
compilation does not have any outtakes or rarities, and the concert CD is just
eight songs that clock in under a measly 35 minutes. Considering that Atheist
never released an official live album in their prime, one might think it
initially useful. However, it is largely superseded now by the bonus tracks
attached to the CD edition of Elements
— a set of six songs recorded for a radio broadcast in 1992, in very good
quality and, funny enough, featuring a relatively shy and quiet style of
introducing the tracks, instead of the predictable stadium-geared roar on Live At Wacken. (Probably the only good
argument in favor of live radio broadcasts over «proper» live albums).
The entire setlist is based on the first two
albums, completely ignoring Elements,
although this may be due to the fact that Steve Flynn, the drummer, did not
play on that one and did not want to learn the parts of his replacement, rather
than a general «denial» of its existence. But that is not really a problem.
What might be a problem is that the
new guitarists do not have quite the same set of tones that made the original
records so crisp. Here, the guitar sound veers towards extra distortion,
coming at the expense of brutal heaviness, and the results kick plenty of ass,
but much less of the brain, if you know what I mean. (Actually, this is a
rather typical flaw of live metal albums — for some reason, either metal
guitarists do not bother to reproduce their «perfect» studio tones live or this
is just a technical impossibility — but some situations are worse than others,
and Live At Wacken falls into the «some»
rather than the «others» category).
On the other hand, you do have Steve Flynn,
whose technique and energy have not changed one bit in the fifteen years that
he had not played with Atheist — and you have all these songs that still carry
the same badass attitude, so why complain? If you are already an Atheist fan and can get this stuff cheap enough, go
ahead. But if you are not yet convinced, don't let this be your introduction. You
need those old-time guitar tones if
you are determined to develop a taste for this band. Although, on the other
hand, getting the whole package also makes sense — most people will probably
prefer an Atheist compilation over the entire three albums.
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