Search - Atrocity :: Hallucinations / The Hunt

Classic early technical death metal; great reissue

Tom P. the Underground Navigator | Park Forest, IL USA | 09/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In 1989, the extreme death/grind scene was still in its infant stages, with the sound still brand new and on the very cutting edge of the underground. (This was still a couple years before the sound would break in North America.)



In August of that year, West Germany's Atrocity cut their debut 7" "Blue Blood" (tacked on as bonus tracks at the end of this Napalm Records reissue). Wow! Totally brutal guttural death/grind that was the blueprint for a sound that would become much more prominent a couple years later. In fact, the sound on this recording is so brutal that it's hard to believer this was only 1989, as hundreds of (usually lesser) bands have made similar sounds in the nearly 20 years since, making Atrocity one of the absolute originators of the style. "Blue Blood's" sound can be described somewhere between Bolt Thrower's "Realm Of Chaos" and Napalm Death's "Mentally Murdered" (to use two other genre-defining examples from the same year), but the band definitely had their own style.



This vinyl debut proved to be more than strong enough to get the band signed to burgeoning death metal label Roadrunner Records, and the Germans ventured all the way across the globe to Tampa, Florida in June of the following year to record their debut full-length "Hallucinations" at Morrisound Studios, with the assistance of then up and coming producer Scott Burns. This was one of his early production jobs, and was an example of the brilliance to come.



Earlier this year, I reviewed Atrocity's 1992 follow-up "Longing For Death" and called it their finest moment. Well, that was before I re-added "Hallucinations" to my collection recently after all these years, after unearthing one track from it (album opener "Deep In Your Subconscious") on an old Roadrunner cassette compilation that I hadn't heard in years, the original "At Death's Door." After hearing it I decided I had to have Atrocity's entire debut full-length album again.



While "Hallucinations" may not contain anything as instantly catchy as the classic "Unspoken Names" from the follow-up, overall I would rank it as the stronger album of the two, due again to Burns' awesome production (I have yet to hear a bad Morrisound production from this era), which punctuates all the subtleties of the music effectively, giving the blasting drums of Michael Schwarz especially a very crisp tone. And musically, where the follow-up featured some experimentation that was a signal for the direction to come, "Hallucinations" is straight ahead brutal technical death metal throughout that only gets better with repeated listenings, somewhat recalling Cadaver's "Hallucinating Anxiety" (also from 1990) but with a much better production. And just like on the follow-up, Alex Krull's vocals are always a highlight, very brutal in a '90 style and packed with variations in pitch and tone that assure against the listener ever becoming bored.



And, as stated in the headline, Europe's Napalm Records did a FABULOUS job on this reissue. It contains all photos and artwork from the original release, lyrics and even the original thank-list (which is like a time capsule to 1990). And it's thankfully in a standard jewel case format and NOT a cardboard digipak (I hate those!).



Often overlooked in death metal's early history, "Hallucinations" is a classic that should be mentioned in the same breath as other quintessential releases from the same year such as "Left Hand Path," "Dark Recollections," and "Harmony Corruption." Highly recommended."