The title to this band’s second album is probably the strangest I have been confronted with in my time at Ave Noctum. Stranger still, however, is the history of the album. Originally released in 2010 as a limited cassette edition, it gained no greater exposure due to some vague label issues. A little further reading suggests that one label was far from pleased when that tape version surfaced through Satanized Productions, themselves allegedly having been promised rights to the release. Whatever the truth of the matter then, 2013 sees Germany’s Dunkelheit Produktionen giving Pathogen’s sophomore effort the professional release that it always deserved. Despite hailing from the Philippines, first impressions suggest South America as a more likely origin for these guys.
‘Atrocity Exhibit’ opens the album with an obscure, blackened guitar sound and throaty vocals which hark back to the ancient days of Brazil’s Sepultura and Sarcofago. Rather interestingly, the other immediate comparison that Pathogen’s frenzy invites is early Immolation, with some raging drum patterns and similar production on the bass drums. Bearing all the hallmarks of vintage era extreme metal, these fellows relentlessly thrash and blast away through the opening number, incorporating a wailing solo, punishing rhythms and some warped weirdness along the way. Needless to say, a feel of the 80s’ darkest metal permeates everything here, although the benefit of modern recording equipment certainly lends weight to the attack. The storming riffage in ‘Monolith’ weaves around and torments the listener, while the methodic structure of ‘Heretical Wisdom’ beats and oppresses. The pristine widdly-ness of the latter even conjures memories of Rebaelliun’s brain-tearing debut as the drummer blasts away beneath a satisfyingly crazy solo.
To up the percentage of North American influence, ‘Abyss of Perpetual Upheaval’ has something of early Morbid Angel to it, with a far thrashier edge. Another excellent, mental solo appears but it’s really those infernal riffs – which are as burning as a bite of Satan’s legendary home-made pizza diavola – that do the damage. Yet another object lesson in underground destruction, ‘Ideological Strife’ is initiated with whammy abuse just to invoke the forces of inherent evil that bit more… Then we come to ‘Leviathan’ which aside from a festering edge of darkness working its way out now and again, contains a rhythm almost like Unleashed’s emblematic ‘To Asgard We Fly’. This bouncy contrast is welcome in the context of Pathogen’s morbid vision, and even manages to accommodate another Slayer-esque piece of screeching solo work. Following this is the band’s own word on who influenced them: namely, Canada’s Sacrifice, with a cover of their 1987 tune, ‘Afterlife’. As you would expect, it does exactly what it says on the tin, fitting nicely alongside the rest of the material.
Closing out the album comes ‘Uranium Messiah’, which ends things in appropriate fashion ie shoving Pathogen’s cataclysmic message down our throats. The song dies out, surprisingly and impressively, with some really harmonious and Maiden-esque guitar work. Aside from such fleeting moments of diversity, I would say that if variety is the spice of your life then look elsewhere because listening to one track here is enough to know what it’s all about. If, conversely, you crave raw metal power, then this is exactly the place to be. Obscurity, uncompromising orthodoxy and general mania are the order of this 80s death/thrash inspired nightmare.
In the tradition of such bands, you can either embrace ‘Miscreants of Blood Lusting Aberrations’ or persist with life as a (bloody) pussy without it…
(8/10 Jamie Wilson)
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