Skeptic Sense were a band from Ravensburg in southern Germany who released this one incredibly obscure CD and then disappeared without a trace. The story is a familiar one. The label they signed with goes into bankruptcy right at the point of release. No promotion, no wholesale, no reviews, no anything. Even for fans of the style, there would have been little chance to know about this release unless you were tied to the band in some way. It wasn't until years later, the album was rediscovered by deep divers.
Skeptic Sense is a bullseye for the technical thrash metal genre. Imagine Watchtower's Energetic Disassembly and Sieges Even's Life Cycles thrown into a blender. Mix. Pour into a baking dish and let dry. Then cut that up, toss it onto the floor, and then randomly put it back together. That's the sound of Presence of Mind. It's not easy to keep up, and for certain you will have no idea where the music is going. It's 60 minutes of music packed into 33. But the music is definitely heavy, and they do manage to hit a groove here and there, so it's not entirely disjointed liked a spliced tape or something. The tracks do seem composed, perhaps even charted, and the vocals are of the high pitched ball squeezer variety. Fair warning.
These kind of albums grow with age, and multiple listens reveal more each and every time. Well worth ownership status.
The music on the earlier cassettes is, not surprisingly, very similar to the Presence of Mind album. Perhaps a bit more straightforward with less variation among the instrumentation, and a bit heavier/rawer. It's likely these earlier albums are easier to digest for more traditional heavy metal fans, but still quite challenging. Even though all the tracks save 'Last Moments' (from Demonstration) found their way onto the later CD, there's enough variation among them to appreciate each version. For example 'Norm Always Wins' is on all 3, and yet it's hard to recognize. Of course music like this is hard to recognize from the get. We're miles from verse-chorus-verse-solo-chorus sequences here.
All in all a great anthology, and for fans of technical thrash, this is a must find.
Personal collection
CD: 2016 Divebomb (USA)
The booklet is loaded with historical liners (extracted via interview with the band), photos, newspaper articles, and lyrics.
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