PIECE OF TIME

While I don't think any metal fans will have anything bad to say about the intense, savage show of instrumental chops shown throughout Athiest's Piece of Time, those hoping for anything resembling a hook, structure, or melody should be warned! From the get go this album is non-stop speed metal chaos, with acrobatic guitar riffing, a fire bomb of rhythm section destruction, death-metal chattering, and crazy tempo twists. Song structure and an end result seems an after thought, with crazy-for-the-sake-of-crazy becoming the excuse for all the noise.

Being a metal fan, the group's massive instrumental performances definitely grabbed my attention a few times, but the vast majority of this album bounced right off me; it is unapologitically intense and unapproachable... which is probably where a lot of the appeal comes from with some fans. I will never fault a band for "showing off", but during the walls upon walls of noise Athiest fires at us nothing especially productive emerges. Piece of Time's constant and reckless chaos quicly faded into the background for me. Moreover, listeners hesitant/excited about the thrash-metal growls of vocalist of Shaefer should be warned: those who don't enjoy the typical metal growls will probably not be able to make it through this album, and those who do enjoy them will probably not be impressed by Shaefer, who sounds like he's desperately trying to keep up with the speed and intensity of the instrumentalists.

Will definitely hook lovers of avant-thrash metal... and alienate everyone else. I'll take Cynic or Unexpect any day of the week.

Songwriting: 2 Instrumental Performances: 4 Lyrics/Vocals: 1 Style/Emotion/Replay: 2