Pestilence's fourth and final album, 1993's
Spheres, was an inspired but divisive affair, broadening their creative horizons to the brink of
death metal's acceptable limits while alienating their audience at a time when
heavy metal in general found itself in a no-win situation, no matter how inspired. On
Spheres,
Patrick Mameli's vocals were still 100 percent melody-free and crusty in the extreme, but bona fide
death metal guitar crunch was significantly scaled back to make way for pervasive synthesizers, spinning spidery strands throughout the album's best songs -- much like
Cynic's
Focus CD that same year, in fact, minus the equally synthetic robo-vocals. And yet
Pestilence's risk-taking really paid off on these cuts (namely
"Personal Energy," with its division bells forewarning of progress, the aptly named
"Changing Perspectives," and the title track), which turned out as appealing and memorable as they were unorthodox. Too bad they were all shoved into the album's second half, while the first was packed with significantly harsher but halfhearted and unfulfilling hybrids like
"Mind Reflections," "Multiple Beings," and
"The Level of Perception" -- presumably ordered that way in a failed attempt to appease the band's
death metal hard-liners as they were drawn into
Spheres' drastic innovations. And, showing how close was the fraternity of
progressive death metal bands of the period, shorter
ambient pieces such as
"Aurian Eyes," "Voices from Within," and
"Phileas" resembled similar detours placed by
death-
jazz supremos
Atheist on their final LP,
Elements -- also released in 1993. Come to think of it, these three likeminded bands' simultaneous experimentation and extinction pretty much proves that the average
death metal fan was simply unable -- or unwilling -- to accept such daring sonic evolution. And so,
Spheres unfortunately signaled the stillborn death of a promising subgenre, as well as
Pestilence's career, but it's no wonder that the album remains a cult favorite among those by bands as different as
Daath and
CKY. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia
