Fertilizer - A Painting of Annoyance (1994)

One of the stranger acts on the Invasion Records roster, and one of the earlier examples I can think of as a progressive death metal band out of Europe, Germany's Fertilizer put out an album that was likely looked over for being ahead of its time, or just too scattershot for what much of the metal crowd was looking for in the mid-90s. That's not to say that death metal bands weren't blazing trails all over the place, whether it was Amorphis or Dark Tranquillity there were plenty of new sounds emerging within this sonic space, but they were also a lot catchier and slicker than A Painting of Annoyance's clunkier disposition. The album's title is not accurate of its contents, fortunately, we're not talking any level of obnoxiousness, and there's somewhat of a direction to the whole thing, but some of the tunes' compositions seem randomly strung along.

It's choppy death metal with a lot of slower to mid-paced riffs that sound pretty thin despite the chunkier palm muting that drives them. Higher pitched melodies are spit throughout, but these also suffer from a tone that's too dry or clinical. The bass is decent, the drumming is often incredible as they mete out some hyperspeed kick drums that seem far too intense for the rest of the instruments. The vocals are your normal guttural but sometimes they sit in some reverb or effects and howl out over the mix, and they also implement some acoustic guitars, neo-classical note patterns, and clean harmonic vocals that give it a weird, pastoral folk prog feel in the opening to "Solar Vertigo" or the chorus of "T.U.S.C". There are a few points at which you think the band is about to go off like an Atheist or Believer, but then every stays rather reined in, I'm reminded a bit more of their countrymen Atrocity on some of their weirder records before they went Goth, or even the Dutch bands Creepmine and Phlebotomized who performed a lot in these similar tempos and vocals.

The album flows along and makes enough sense, unlike its fragmented cover imagery, but it just seems like the tracks aren't organized in a fashion to make them particularly exciting, and I just don't think the production beyond the drums and vocals is really enough to give this the 'oomph' it needs. Still, if you're in the market to track down some strange and obscure death metal which wasn't hung up on the trends of its times, Fertilizer's album might keep you curious for a spin or two, but if you put it up against something like Pestilence's Spheres or Cynic's Focus, it's nowhere near that same level of successful experimentation.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]