Atheist Piece of Time

Atheist 'Piece of Time' (Active Records 1989)

Hmmm. Atheist were one of those bands you were supposed to like and they were always name dropped by those who were 'in the know'. They were the cool band that other bands mentioned if they wanted to be seen as proper musicians. Personally, I have never really liked bands where you have to put effort into liking them. That might sound lazy and many may perceive me as some kind of musical Philistine, but I listen to music to enjoy it and constant rhythm changes and jazz influences have never ever done it for me.

Atheist play progressive and technical thrash metal which is on the cusp of death metal. Unfortunately, 'progressive' and 'technical' are two words which, unless they are associated with Morbid Angel's early output, turn me off. Fans of Voivod would like this a lot. I'm not a fan of Voivod.

Atheist are obviously hugely important in the development of a particular strain of death metal and as such are well respected and referred to as an influence by many. I assume that the Meshuggah types out there have this album on repeat play. I'd avoid their houses in preference of a six pack and the Grave back catalogue any day.

There is no doubting that it is extremely well played and the musicianship is top quality. The bass playing of Roger Patterson is of particular note and he plays some really interesting breaks and underpins the stoppy starty progress of the album. Unfortunately, Roger died in a car crash after the release of this album and I haven't heard anything else by them so I can't comment on how much their sound changed after his sad demise. I do remember clearly the outpourings of grief at the time and the respect that he had throughout the metal community so he was obviously a great loss, both as a talent and as a person.

The previously mentioned 'Mean Deviation' book dedicates a lot of coverage to Atheist and explains the reasons behind Atheist's challenging take on the death metal format; left handed guitarists, Rush inspired drummers and 'a prodigy on the level of Metallica's Cliff Burton' (praise cannot really get any higher) on bass. Despite this, and an impeccable Florida pedigree, the album was recorded at the famous Morrisound Recording Studios and engineered by Scott Burns, the album fails to grab me. Scott Burns is actually very restrained on this recording and the music really does breathe, the quality is allowed to shine through and is not compressed out of existence.

This is in no way bad. It's actually at least five times more enjoyable than anything released by Voivod or Watchtower, even Sadus. It's just not my cup of Darjeeling.

Piece