Atheist- Unquestionable Presence (1991)

Atheist- Unquestionable Presence (1991)

“By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”

Richard Dawkins

By: Ghost Writer

There was a crazy time, when I was totally into Death Metal, I remember that along with my friends, we were always looking for new groups, the ones who break all boundaries, the fastest, the heaviest, we wanted more and it was never enough, but personally I wasn't prepared for something like this, I mean if you heard their first record, you knew the potential of the group, but their follow up, after tragedy struck the band was simply amazing.

 One day I heard that a Florida group Atheist had finished their second album, like Metallica, they lost their bass player in an accident, and were intended to make a big comeback with members from Cynic, a band that made a curious reputation within the underground by lending their proficient players to other acts in the Florida state.

 Rumors tell you that Metallica wanted Rush's Geddy Lee to produce Master of Puppets, Geddy Lee said he didn't accepted because he didn't liked metal enough; I guess it was a weird option, but it could have worked in an interesting way, after all,  Lee was a big fan of the legendary Blue Cheer, who were kind of the Metallica of the 60`s, perhaps Lee, who knew a thing or two about playing with great drummers, simply didn't wanted to do nothing with the Ringo Starr of heavy metal aka Lars Ulrich, I'm sure that Mr. Lee would have loved to work with a band like Atheist.

Starting from the name, I was hooked with the band from the beginning, yes, I know evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins appeared recently on a Nightwish record, but Atheist was more the type of band Dawkins might listen to, attacking complex themes no common death metal bands would dare to, even the band's name didn't sound as satanic or menacing as Deicide or Morbid Angel, or cartoonish as Malevolent Creation or Cannibal Corpse, Atheist was the thinking man's death metal band, I even remember when I arrived to school with Unquestionable Presence and my heavy metal friends started talking about "death jazz", after all we were aware of John Zorn's work with Naked City or Painkiller (grindjazz?) but Atheist, were something else, they were highly technical musicians, but not in a total progressive way, Tony Choy, the hired bassist was in total synchronization with the band's drummer, playing some really badass slap bass,  along with drummer Steve Flynn, they somehow managed ways to find space everywhere and filled it with more unsuspected beats, while guitars sounded as maniac as ever, with complex twin attacks going from dissonant lines, to killer intricate riff variations.

 Listening to Unquestionable Presence is great experience for any devoted music lover, it might be death metal, if you wish to call it that way, but this talented band never lets you down, always surpassing expectancies, giving us big surprises note after note, yes, it sounded like those really complex progressive bands, but they were smart enough to concentrate their instrumental blasts in three or four minutes songs, that and guitarist singer Kelly Schaeffer developed talent for introducing wonderful melodies within the song tight arrangements.

After Atheist, a new frontier was conquered, bands went for the technical side of metal to ridiculous proportions, but the never matched Atheist miraculous talent to sum the intellectual with the sublime, and let's not forget that before all, Atheist knew how to swing.