PESTILENCE — Spheres (review)

PESTILENCE — Spheres album cover Album · 1993 · Technical Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Time Signature
Voices from within...

Genre: jazz death metal (yeah, mama!)

When it came out, "Spheres" took most of the metal community by surprise, because it was so different from anything the band had done before, and, with its outspoken jazz fusion influences, very different from death metal in general. And most people did not respond well to that surprise, reflecting the fact that many humans - even metalheads - by default, cannot handle changes very well.

Eventually, the world started to appreciate the album, and now it is probably among the most revered progressive death metal albums. Sadly, this appreciation came too late, and the album was a huge commercial flop, causing the band to break up. Ironically, "Spheres" ended up the standard by which subsequent Pestilence releases are held - unfairly - up against.

The music blends jazz fusion with death metal, and sounds like nothing before it, or after it. It really is original, but - like all other Pestilence releases - it is based on the use of compact riffs which, however, are pretty spacey and have a sort of fluidity to them. The jazz fusion influences are quite outspoken both in the riffs and in the guitar solos, which generally sound wonderfully weird.

While I am a big fan of the music itself, I am not a big fan of the vocals, but I have gotten used to them, and I cannot imagine how the album would sound with another vocalist. The production also sound a bit flat, and combined, the vocals and the production are the main factors why this album can be difficult to listen to in the beginning, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the music itself, which is wonderfully mindboggling without actually being overly technical.

An album shunned by many due to its "differentness" in a time when almost all death metal bands sounded the same, "Spheres" belongs up there with the few other outstanding technical death metal classics such as "Symbolic", "Unquestionable Presence" and "Focus". It certainly is one of my favorite death metal releases.
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