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Atheist at its best was still often scattered and annoying, but the newest incarnation is the band at its worst. Vocalist and founding member Kelly Schaefer had to quit playing guitar due to tendonitis, so now the band features an annoying Poindexter type on second guitar who looked like he went to a local music school and never listened to metal before. Schaefer's vocals and stage presence were grating, and the band blithered through their material with all the "death-jazz" pretensions fully in place. This is what non-fans of metal think it all sounds like - crazy drums, squealing guitar solos, and very little structure or coherence. It was great to have so many death metal bands from the early 1990's present at this festival, but Atheist was the exception.
View the entire top 10 best and worst things about Maryland Deathfest 2009 for more.
Comments
It seems to me that you do not care for this band at all based on the comments you left. They played Sonar in 2006 and they were awesome. There were some problems with the vocals but their new guitarist has some definite skill. Maybe you should appreciate them for what they brought table in the beginning.
I don't see how what they did 20 years ago excuses clownish execution now. Asphyx demonstrated that if you're going to reform a band, it had better be done right or not at all.
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