JUPITER

If you listen to music long enough, chances are that eventually you're going to attempt to understand a style or genre several times without breaking the ice. Ultra-technical death metal hasn't exactly been my best friend lately, and Atheist's reunion album JUPITER only further distances me from the genre. To be fair, maybe this wasn't the right album to begin with Atheist.

Many of the problems that I ran into on Death's final album (SOUND OF PERSERVERANCE) are here as well. For most of the songs, the band settles into a riff for only about a minute before shifting gears completely into another riff without smoothly transitioning. The few attempts at a ''break'' feel like braking at 85 mph and immediately punching the gas pedal; the stop-start riffs end up being aural whiplash to the point where it hurts.

It practically goes without saying that the members of Atheist have quite the technical chops. That unfortunately leads to another problem. The playing is constantly on loud and hyper-complex to the point where there's no straight line anchoring the music. Other technical based bands such as Meshuggah seem to have an anchor in their complexity so that the technicality of the music doesn't run away from them. JUPITER seems to sound clogged with so many riffs and solos that I can't remember what happened after the album is over.

There are two double-edged swords here. First, the production does a great job at bringing out how destructively good the guitars can be, yet the bass is practically buried save for a slap line at the end of the album. Second, the songs are relatively short (nothing exceeds five minutes here), so there's nothing too long. At the same time, these are the longest 4 minute songs I've heard in my life.

I feel like I got started on the wrong album with this group, especially give the platitudes of their heyday albums. JUPITER is a nice present to the hardcore fans, but newcomers might be put off with this.