ATHEIST — Elements (review)

ATHEIST — Elements album cover Album · 1993 · Technical Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
The Block
The elements of awesomeness!

This was my first ever Atheist album, and boy is it a good one. Coming right after their Unquestionable Presence album, it is definitely their most progiest so far. All their other albums are death metal including their newest one, Jupiter, which followed this album. When I went to buy it I was looking for an album that was metal, but had some jazz elements to it, too. If you are looking for jazz this one is definitely the right choice since it has more jazz, in my opinion, over the rest of their albums.

The song “Earth”, “Air”, “Fire”, “Water”, and “Animal” are highlighted as the elements and are longer than the rest of the songs. What’s weird is that after each “element” song there is a very short song that averages out a about a minute in length. The jazziest song on the album is one of these very short songs.

As you might be able to tell from the name, “Samba Briza”, is a very jazzy tune. It is completely instrumental with Congo drums from Josh Greenbaum and a pretty good bass line by Tony Choy. It has a very upbeat feel to it, played in the major key while most of the rest of the album is played in minor, like normal death metal. It also features great guitar solos from Rand Burkey and Frank Emmi.

As you can tell from the names, the “element” songs all have to do with the element they are named for. I think that by doing so they made the album more enjoyable because there is a definite point to all the songs. One of these songs is “Air” which features some great solos, and some very nice, groovy licks and riffs. Another good song is “Elements” which again features some great solos.

Overall this album includes many good instrumentals and very good drumming. One thing that I am not totally crazy about is the singing. I enjoy it a lot, but it just isn’t exactly my type of singing. It seems a little to high pitched to be growling, but just not right to be singing. But, despite this, Atheist’s third album still deserves 4 stars.
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