The Classic Metal Album Review:
Title: Not To Be Undimensional Conscious
Artist: Disharmonic Orchestra
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release Date: 1992

Rating: 4 Skulls
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    • Requiem's Review:
    If death metal or grindcore ever needed anything, it was a dose of originality. As enjoyable as it was or still is, it was always nice to see somebody take hold of the genre, and give it a whole new perspective. Disharmonic Orchestra is one band that completely disobeyed every so-called rule in the book. Compared to their previous blasterpiece, Not To Be Undimensional Conscious incorporated elements that were previously unheard of. Jazz tempos, slap bass and the occasional dash of hip-hop made for a dangerous, yet invigorating ride. Reason being, because they did it well.

    If this were tried by incompetent musicians, the results would have failed miserably. But here we saw a death metal rarity, a three piece that were certainly needing no more. The complicated rhythmic patterns are further accented by the frolicking bass lines that would give many a bass player a run for their money. The guitars give the whole affair its grindcore stamp, while the vocals growl along as we'd expect them to, except with a stronger hold on pronunciation than our average cookie monster impersonator. Hallucinogenic drugs and lots of Mahavishnu Orchestra could have been a major factor in this new-fangled sound.

    Weird would be one word to easily describe what's going on here. The drum work is simply off the map in terms of handling complex tempos with ease and the bass work here rivals that of Steve DiGeorgio any day of the week. There's no doubt that Disharmonic Orchestra were marching to the beat of an entirely different drummer, and not many tried to follow them, because they simply couldn't. Death metal had always been challenging, but there's an extra helping of prog and eclecticism here. The promo pics of the band caressing teddy bears in a toy filled room looks odd at first, but once you've digested this, it'll all make perfect sense. Or then again, maybe it won't.
    4 out of 5

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