Published on Mar 10, 2000
I’ve been listening to a lot of paradoxes lately. The first was
Japanese death metal, which we talked about in the Hellchild
review. Now that I’ve got that idea digested, let’s throw another
one at you: Christian death metal.
No, really. Christian death metal. Sounds about as likely as a
lasting marriage for Elizabeth Taylor, doesn’t it? But there are
indeed bands who follow this strange career path. May God have
mercy on us all.
One such act, Tourniquet, has been banging it out for some time
now. Their latest disc,
Microscopic View Of A Telescopic Realm, is spiritual without
being overtly preachy – except, at times, against some members of
their own genre.
Thinking about it, calling Tourniquet – vocalist Luke Easter,
guitarist/vocalist Aaron Guerra and drummer Ted Kirkpatrick – death
metal isn’t quite correct. Sure, they know when it’s time to thrash
it out. But musically, there’s a balance on this disc that works
well at some times, and seems to be terribly out of place at other
times.
Take the opening track “Besprinkled In Scarlet Horror,” a track
that happily pounds away for a while until – wham! – you hear the
Gothic strains of a pipe organ. If this weren’t enough, the last
movement of the song throws things into reverse as Tourniquet turns
the song almost into a light-pop round with the vocals. I don’t
know what they were thinking, but they were better off leaving this
song following one style path for the whole trip.
That being said, there are moments on this track where Easter
and crew slam other death metal acts for their lyrical and cover
art content (“Words verbose, gory to what end do they serve? / Or
images vivid scarlet horrors absurd”) and speed for the pure sake
of playing fast (“You say this pace beckons evil spirits / But I
care not what you call it / To me it’s two hundred beats per
minute”). Nice touch.
Tourniquet could have commited commercial suicide by being
overtly preachy in their music – something they come close to doing
on “Besprinkled In Scarlet Horror”. But for the most part, the
religious imagery is kept low-key, and utilized well on tracks like
“The Tomb Of Gilgamesh” and “Servant Of The Bones”.
If there’s any real drawback to
Microscopic View Of A Telescopic Realm, it’s that this disc
isn’t the easiest to approach, no matter what your views on the
specific genre Tourniquet follows. I think it took me seven listens
before I could get all the way through this disc without becoming
musically overwhelmed. And I’ll admit, the more you listen to this
disc, the more positive things you’ll find about it. But I question
whether anyone will really want to put that kind of time and effort
into what is essentially a heavy metal CD.
I don’t know whether Tourniquet is geared towards commercial
success, or what lies ahead for them on the map. But if they want
to reach a wider audience, they need to make CDs that are more
approachable and easier to swallow in one listening.
Microscopic View Of A Telescopic Realm eventually proves
itself to be a worthy disc, but it takes far too long for that fact
to emerge.