Music that no one had dared to attempt playing until then in the Death Metal scene

One year after the Piece of Time album, came the second attack from Atheist. Four people just playing and creating pure technical music that no one had dared to attempt playing until then in the Death Metal scene. "Unquestionable Presence" is the best album in the short career of this great band and has influenced tons and tons of bands and musicians. After the more thrashy album Piece of Time, Atheist took their sound to the next step. 

This release is way ahead of its time, released in 1991, this album was destined to become a classic. Atheist is a 100% Progressive metal band or if you like a Jazz/Death metal band. Choy (who replaced the late Roger Patterson) and Flynn are not just the rhythm section, the usual bassist/drummer co operation in order to keep the tempo for the guitar to play. Choy was not an ordinary bass player to fill the place of Patterson but had played in Cynic, another band in the vein of Atheist and although most of the songs were already co written with Roger before his death, he also contributed his own parts and did a splendid job. The rhythm section can hardly be described like that but a more suitable description would be that it plays at the same level with the guitar and voice, drums and bass have their own fields of creativity and area of development. What we’ve got here is insane music from four highly capable musicians. Their creativity and technical skills are very high and this is what I really like about this band, their insanity while playing and the omitting of any kind of boundaries. Their music stops to no where and you can hear Jazz/Latin elements in the songs with a Death metal approach.

Now it’s difficult to pick up the best songs from this album, they are all one by one masterpieces. My suggestions from this album are: Mother Man, Unquestionable Presence, Enthralled In Essence, Formative Years and And The Psysic Saw. I repeat that all songs are of the same high level and that these 5 songs are just suggestions to check out if you like before buying. The bonus tracks are of historical value, we’ve got demo tracks with Roger Patterson before his death. 

The rating of this album is not of much importance. What else could you expect instead of a 10?