UNQUESTIONABLE PRESENCE

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I had a very mixed standpoint when approaching this album, I had heard some very good things about it, the jazz-metal label and the technicality I had heard about excited me very much but the death metal assosciation I was very apprehensive about as I had never liked that kind of music, it was a groundbreaking experience for me exploring new territories of music and indeed this album was fairly groundbreaking itself (and very influential).

So I put this album on and in the first 10 seconds - it kicked my ass, I was as giddy as a kid on christmas day, super tight, super technical, sweet riffs - just awesome. Mother man is a fantastic song it's a very good introduction and summary of what to expect from these guys, it starts off in rather odd timing with an incomprehensible drum beat and a sweet harmonised guitar riff and then moves on into a thrashy riff, later on there is a bitchin' solo, more crazy timing and then a soft jazz influenced ending - wonderfully written.

As for the instrumentation well what is there to say, let's start with the rythmn section - frankly god damn amazing, the songs are written around them and it really shows. On the remaster there are bonus tracks including a drum and bass track for mother man and that is entertaining on it's own. The drums are funky as hell, steve flynn is obviously a jazz trained drummer, the thing I love most about him is he doesn't just rely on super fast double kick or blasting like a lot of death metal drummers, he has some amazingly groovy and technical beats - top marks. Tony choy, what a bassist a veteran of the genre from such accalimed bands as cynic, he grooves out too with some great slap bass technique and really nice bass riffs. Let's not forget the guitars, I guess it's harder to appreciate great guitarists these days I find as bloody everyone is a shredder but kelly schaefer and rand burkey are very very competent, their harmonies are super tight, their solos are bitchin' and most importantly their riffs are technical and awesome. The vocals I find are perfect, they are relatively high pitched they are a lot 'lighter' and less guttural than most death metal vocals.

Every song on the album is solid as a rock and they all have some sweet part that you'll want to come back and listen to it for, my personal favourites are mother man and and the psychic saw but I'm certainly not going to be skipping through the other songs so I can hear them.

I have seen the band cop a fair bit of criticism for playing too many riffs and trollop like that and I hear people complain that you know it's emotionally devoid etc but you know if you listen to space rock or symphonic prog all day and then whack this baby on you're going to think that, The songs are perfectly written I barely even notice the amount of riffs that they go through - and it really doesn't matter either because the music is great. Highly recommended for any fan of heavier prog metal, thrash, technical or death metal.

Unquestionable Presence is one of my alltime favorite albums. I listen to this a couple of times a month and have for the last 15 years. It´s perfect in any way possible. The production is heavy as F... but still clear enough so you can hear what the different instruments do. It´s a technical monster, but in my opinion with a purpose. Nothing sounds forced here, every riff ( and there are ekstremely many)sounds natural.

The genre can be defined this way: Death Metal/ Thrash with strong jazz/ Fusion influences. It´s a genre very few bands play, and out of the handful that do, very few succeed. Atheist should be regarded as kings of this genre and this album is the grandfather of the style. Crushing brutal Death riffs, a screaming growling vocal ( not a gutteral one), and very complex rythms, all played at the speed of light are the ingredients of this album. It´s so intense that I can´t sit still while listening to this, I always rave around my house in a weird tribal dancelike state ( this can´t be explained, you´ll have to witness this to (Dis)believe your eyes.

The album starts with Mother Man that together with I Deny from Piece of Time are my favorite Atheist songs. It´s a really great song with many different riffs and moods. Another standout track I´m gonna mention is "Your Life's Retribution" which contains some of the most brutal Death metal riffing I have ever heard ( take that Cannibal Corpse), just played in an unconventional way.

A truly progressive album in every sense of the word ( well it´s not symphonic ! but still). Very essential. They have exactly what I think a lot of the prog metal bands lack and that´s aggression and brutality, a lovely trademark of Metal. But at the same time they have the complexity of Prog Rock and jazz/ Fusion.

I Can´t recommend this album enough. Mostly for Metal fans though, and maybe open minded jazz/ Fusion fans.

And the pioneers of technical death metal once more rightfully appear among the 20 most important albums of tech/extreme progressive metal history on Prog Archives

Initial thoughts: Unquestionable Presence was, from the very fist time i listened it, mind blowing: the mix of death metal with completely crazy time signatures and time signature changes, broken rhythm, fast paced playing reminded me a lot the avant-garde prog bands and they also crazy playing (maybe they play like that because they have clear jazz and progressive rock influences on this album, making the music sounds very special and different from everything i ever saw; some even say that this is a death-jazz album). This band is also one of my favorites extreme prog metal bands (right after Death and Opeth) because they could not only make good releases, but also help trace the boundaries of this sub-genre with their revolutionary albums.

About the songs, musicianship and other features there are some thing i would like to state:

This album lyrics and themes are very broad. It talks about nature, aliens, social issues, personal issues, and some more, being a really large selection of subjects. About musicianship, there is no question about these guys ability and competence. The music they play is extremely hard to play, going from heavy riffing to odd time signature solos with broken rhythm and atonalism and to clear playing, always playing incredibly fast and furiously. Although they crazy playing, all instruments are clearly hearable and balanced, i mean, there is not an instrument that have all attention all the time, like in some other bands such as Death; no, all is perfectly measured for the instruments to play as having the same importance. The vocals are also great, i mean, sure this kind of screamed vocal is not beautiful, but it fits perfectly in this kind of music. The vocals also follow the broken rhythm of the music, what is very interesting and worth note, even to death metal.

Grade and final thoughts: Damn, this hurts me but i must say it: this album is not for everyone, there, i said it. Being so metal and having such complicated music stuff to digest, this is the kind of crazy avant-garde prog metal masterpiece that takes a lot to digest and fully comprehend its importance to the style. if you don't like this kind of thing PLEASE, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD stay away from this album or AT LEAST listen it enough times to be sure of your grade (like a year); i mean it guys, seriously! Even though i was blown away and impressed by this album it took me a long time to fully appreciate this entirely.

Anyway, because Atheist helped to redefined what is extreme prog metal with their jazz beat, experimentalism and inovation and to push the boundaries as further as Death did and helped to trace a line to the new born genre with this test of musicianship, balance and hard work, Atheist deserves the masterpiece grade for sure!

I really can't see the perfection.

When I hear this, ATHEIST's universally-acclaimed masterpiece, I hear a damn good album. I hear an album that has very original music (I guess I'd appreciate that even more if I had listened to it when it just came out in 1991), an album with complex and intricate playing, and probably a landmark for metal. I just think that there's something missing.

After all, history has nothing to do with quality. To be the first doesn't necessarily mean to be the best. And if this album broke new grounds for death metal, it still remains, as a work of music, slightly flawed, in my view.

The music, as has been said before till exhaustion, is very technical and precise, with countless tempo changes and short little sections intertwined one after another. Also, here we have an album with riffs galore. If in thrash and extreme metal the driving force in music has always been the riff, in ATHEIST it surely takes another level (as, later, with DEATH) in that it practically becomes the only element that distinguishes one song from the other, and in that every track contains a big amount of different ones. We hardly have any moment in the album when we're not listening to a riff (some are very good) and that's one first complaint: lack of textures, of depth. Even though the bass lines appear to be quite technical, they're quite simple in harmony, and the album, at times, sounds a little empty. Another guitar would've been great if it had been used to build a denser wall of sound.

And it's, again, in the riff structure that I find my second complaint against the perfection of this album. I'm OK with the fact that melody is not really a protagonist here (it's Florida-style death metal after all; and, at that, is more melodic than other representatives of the genre); but the excessive use of riffs usually go against the coherence of tracks. Music has a very important relationship with memory, as studies of the brain and plain common sense show. Music doesn't just exist, but is created and re- created in advance in our heads when we listen to it. And if we have problems assimilating a song because it doesn't have a structure that has a discernable origin, it gets difficult to fully get to enjoy. When a structure is based on a succession of riffs, sometimes a song can become just a collection of sections and not a smoothly flowing whole. Actually, in simpler death metal this is less evident as the structures are simpler, less pretentious, and easier to detect (even in Florida death metal as in MORBID ANGEL); it's in technical death metal bands the likes of ATHEIST and DEATH where this problem is more evident, where, for the sake of technique, an over-abundance of riffs and sometimes the ephemeral importance of some of them create songs that can easily be broken down in minor parts, any of which would survive on its own, thus rendering the whole sum of them just a little more than a brilliant collage.

Don't get me wrong. The album is so original, adventurous and important for metal's further development that I can't give it any lower rating than a 4. But, seeing how universally praised it is, I think I had to explain the reasons why I don't think it's that perfect. As a piece of metal music, it gets a 5, for all the meaning of this album in the genre; for being groundbreaking, it gets a 5. For the true quality of the music as music, for me, it gets a 3. So, a 4 would be just OK.

Get it anyway. Any fan of extreme prog metal HAS to have this album in its collection. This doesn't mean every fan will love it. But music history is very important to appreciate newer music. And in the tech-prog metal genre, ATHEIST's "Unquestionable Presence" is unquestionably part of its roots.

The best of ATHEIST's three avant-garde death-jazz offerings, 'Unquestionable Presence' almost wins me over.

There's a great deal to like. Like it's sister band CYNIC (they shared a bassist at this point), ATHEISTS bristles with technical perfection and screams with energy. Unlike CYNIC (fortunately), the sound is not over-processed, though the vocals are too far down in the mix, making for difficult listening. The time signatures are plain crazy, almost MESHUGGAH-like, and the only stable thing about this album is the relentless change of metre and pace - ponderous one moment, galloping the next.

For me, though, all these things amount to something less than a masterpiece. There is no real rationale for riffs appearing and disappearing: the listener is not led anywhere by the chopped-up songs. The very best music of any genre is more than an appreciation of its component parts. At times KELLY SHAEFER sounds like an even angrier FISH rather than a testosterone-laden death metal vocalist. The Florida death metal scene really seemed to have trouble with their vocalists: CYNIC's, for example, was atrocious.

And there's the album's brevity. Eac son seem cu shor. The whole album ends before it's hardly started. Good for keeping up intensity, but 32 minutes isn't really enough to immerse oneself in.

For me this is a three-star album - with an extra star acknowledging its historical importance. A tech-metal gem, but not likely to appeal to a general prog audience.

This album proved to be rather strange for me. It was my first exposure to jazz metal, and I got it because of the many fantastic things I'd heard about it. When I first heard it, I thought it sounded like really demented technical death metal in odd time signatures, but didn't really hear the jazz much on the first song, Mother Man, which opened with a really strange yet groovy drum beat. On the second song and title track, the jazz became much more obvious with a bass line in the middle of the song, which almost sounded like a twisted walking bass technique you'd expect to hear in jazz. Retribution starts with a guitar riff with growls alternating in between the riffs. Spooky, but it works very well. The guitar solo on this song is insane. Enthralled in Essence starts with one of my favorite guitar riffs in the whole album and also has another killer bass line starting halfway through the song. An Incarnations Dream starts with an acoustic passage along with what sounds like a siren mixed with the wind and thunder from a fierce storm, quite a beautiful passage really. Once the sound effects go away, the acoustic passage continues with a brief solo before returning the listener to jazzy metal from hell. This is possibly my favorite track from the album. The Formative Years starts with a single note held by the one guitar while the other guitar saws away before both come in with ridiculous riffs. I don't even know how some of the drum rolls on this song are possible. A nice bass line comes in around 1:30 followed by what sounds like alternating guitar solos. Actually, this song really has more like 3 or 4 solo sections. Brains starts with lead and rhythm guitars alternating back and forth. Also has yet another nice bass riff which makes me wish learning bass could go faster so I could pull off some really cool riffs like the ones on this album. And The Psychic Saw starts with a guitar line that is almost as enjoyable as the one at the beginning of Enthralled in Essence. And once again we are treated to another fantastic bass riff that is played along a guitar solo. The song oddly enough ends with a gong being struck. So overall impressions of the album itself: very technical (and that's probably an understatement), very jazzy for metal, and unless you like death metal, then this album is probably going to take some getting used to. However, I would urge you if you're thinking of trying out some jazz metal to start with Cynic first as they are much more melodic and then move on to Atheist, particularly this album. This is definitely an album that any prog fan that enjoys jazz fusion should at least check out, as it is a very interesting and enjoyable take on jazz-turned-metal. Certainly a masterpiece and deserving of every single one of the 5 stars I give it.

The fathers of avant garde death jazz ???

Atheist is for more than 20 years the pile of tech extreme genre with 3 albums, each one with someting to offer, but the middle of those 3 , Unquestionable presence from 1991 is their best - at least 90% of the reviewers said and argued aswell. Now here is my opinion abiut this band and particular this album. Being awere of brutal music from begging of the '90's when I discovered bands like Death, Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Cynic (more or less brutal), etc I gied a try to this band from USA named Athesist. Didn't know anything about them in that period , it was in 1992. From the first listen I was blown away by them, how speedy they manage to play , how brutal but in same time how smooth and inventive with catchy pieces. I was so fascinating ten because they were in same vein with Death who just released Human, or later on Cynic. Atheist was and still remain not an usual death metal band, the growls are on every piece but in a diffren't way as on every death band from that period, the music is death metal to my ears but very updated with jazz and speed elements, combined is Atheist, an unique and solid band from early' 90's. The music is very well played, very strong , the muscianship is excellent, but is but always, sometimes they repet themself to many times on each piece. Then, 16 years I was very impressed about this album , as I said, now today something is diffrent in my view, more I listen more my view about some bands from my youth changed (in better or worse , depends), this time in worse. Noe this album seems to me a good one, no doubt about it, but less convinceing and enjoyble than was 15 years ago. All the pieces has same level, I can't extract one to be the best, anyway they repete to much the same riffs and vocal arrangemets on every piece. That makes me give only 3 stars. Prefer all the way anything Death released over the years in stead of Atheist, Still a strong album in my view but nothing about a masterpiece here.

Atheist is an unique band, blending elements of jazz and death metal into one. Their second album, Unquestionable Presence, if often seen as their masterpiece. I'm not sure where those thoughts come from though, as I don't hear much more than a good album in it.

Don't get me wrong here. Unquestionable Presence is a very innovative and interesting album, featuring some great pieces of music. The album opener, "Mother Man", for example is one of those tracks. A lovely rythm section underneath a layer of crunchy guitars and Kelly Shaefer's aggresive vocal style. Another great song is the aggresive "Enthralled In Essence", being a very heavy and complicated piece of music. Also very notable is "An Incarnation's Dream". The song opens with a wonderful gentle intro, before exploding into a heavy beast. I find these the best tracks on the album, and though there are no really bad tracks on the album I think the other's are much less interesting.

So though the album has no music on it that I dislike, I feel that the album has too few moments that are more than just good. Therefore I rate the album three stars, though I think that the combination of melodic jazz and crushing metal could have been a far more successful one.