Customer Reviews

Not to Be Undimensional Conscious

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Disharmonic Orchestra is not your average Death Metal band. For a start, the band has only three members. They are also fond of a bit of experimentation, usually frowned upon in such a restrictive genre. `Not To Be Undimensional Conscious' is not your average Death Metal album either.

Unusual samples of a ringing telephone, and some hard to distinguish sounds, Jazzy, almost Funk-style bass, blasts, dysrhythmic percussive patterns, and Patrick Klopf's unique Death grunt all feature, and that's just in the first moments of the opening track. From the song titles, it should be plain to see the lyrics are not the usual Death Metal staples of gore and violence. Emotion, love, dreams and philosophy seem to be the focus.

The most unusual part of Disharmonic Orchestra's sound is that the drums are the lead instrument. In Death Metal, the rhythm guitar generally holds the main riff of the song, and bass, drums and vocals all hang off it. Not here. Drummer Martin Messner is lord and master of this album, rejecting traditional straight forward Death Metal drumming in favour of off the wall beats, twisted fills, and Jazz drum patterns, without ever missing a beat or losing any impact. The Death Metal staples of blast beats and double kick drumming are still there, but aren't the dominant features of Messner's unique style. Imagine a heavier, slightly less frenetic version of Atheist and you won't be far off the mark.

Bassist Herwig Zamernik is the heaviest Funk bass player you'll ever hear. His instrument still has dirty Death Metal distortion, but he slaps, plucks, and generally dances up and down the fretboard with skill and dexterity hardly seen in any form of Metal. Occasionally, the bass sounds high in the mix, but the bottom end is never neglected. "Addicting Seas With Missing Pleasure" starts with a slap bass riff, using Death Metal tunings, which is odd yet striking.

With so much happening in the rhythm section, the guitars don't need to do much. Most of the riffs are simplistic, but heavy. The uncompromisingly heavy guitar sound is very close to that of fellow Austrian psychos Pungent Stench. It is not until fourth track "The Return Of The Living Beat" that the guitar dictates proceedings. There's a funky breakdown, with rapped clean vocals, but true to form, the sound is still pure Death.

There is a huge experimental, Progressive influence on this album. The moody, spaced out, mostly instrumental "Timeframe" spins a simple, repetitive bass melody through the song, accompanied by piano and acoustic guitar, which rips into a short Metal passage, before returning to the drifting beauty of the main theme of the song. It is too subtle for the average Cannibal Corpse fan, but would also be too scary for Dream Theater listeners.

This is extreme Art Rock without the pretension. Sure, it's Death Metal, but it's so much more. If you can find `Not To Be Undimensional Conscious', approach it without any preconceptions, and you'll be rewarded.

Many a Death Metal bands don't deserve 5 star reviews but get them anyway from a completely unquestioning, puppet fan base. Austria's Disharmonic Orchestra had something to offer musically but within the Death Metal and Grind genres attitudes can be unflinching as to what is accepted as reasonable and what is not. With Death Metal bands that had progressive/technical tendencies the results were often tragic. These bands got ignored or were met with some degree of scorn. While the pantheon of progressive/technical Death Metal bands has become more respectable in recent years with Atheist, Cynic, and Sadus becoming more popular, some are still waiting to be discovered. Enter: Disharmonic Orchestra.

From the first note played, the listener is treated to tight, slightly off time, jarring playing. The bass (Herwig Z) and drums (Martin M) dominate but the guitars (Patrick K.) round out the entire sound with a mostly low strung, atonal overall sound. This is the one thing that might want to make people characterize them as a death/grind band because it is almost like listening to those early 90s Grindcore records with incomprehensible guitars. Fear not! This guitar is more accesible and does everything from the traditional thrash/death metal lick, to playing that sounds more akin to something from a John Scofield record (well, almost...)

The bass is played with such veracity and intesity the listeners ears are immediately drawn to it. Unlike most DM bands who actively work to put the bass in the background as much as possible, the production here brings the bass forward quite a bit more. The bass overall goes between a heavy low to slap happy playing with tons of slides and groove. The way the bass hums along throughout the recording one is reminded of Steve DiGiorgio and Sadus -one of the few breakout thrash/death bands for the prominent display of bass guitar in a metal setting. Overall the bass is awesome but amazingly doesn't detract at all from the final overall product.

The drumming is rather excellent. There is something blasting and double bass marathons here and there, but there are some jaw dropping fills and shuffles that add heavily to the overall product. Patrick's vocals are pretty standard for DM. No falsetto here. Mostly in the gutter grunting department. They are much more intelligible though than most of the genre's leaders. It further brings forward their strange lyrics.

Great album. Recommended to those who want something who truly sounds different. This 1992 doesn't let down. Cheers to the (at that time) small Nuclear Blast for releasing this! Up there with Atheist, Cynic, Anacrusis, mid-nineties Suffocation and late period Death.