I often state that I like my heavy metal a bit on the messy side - highly creative, unusual, quirky, and unpredictable. Let me introduce you to the latest band I've heard in this category: Existence. From the first notes, I knew this was going to be in my wheelhouse. The riffing and solos are excellent, the vocals are somewhat normal, and the music is all over the place. Now on this latter observation, I'm not a fan of genre hopping or avant garde dissonance. It's none of that, rather it's a very familiar sound but off-kilter. In the end it sounds like Iron Maiden playing the music of Manilla Road with a side of early Fates Warning. The vocals and NWOBHM's heritage recall Legend (UK). Competent and creative, but not pitch perfect, not even close. Existence defies their German heritage and sounds like a band that could have emerged from the garages of West Virginia. And 1990 was the height of these bands rising to the surface. Most received no press coverage and were a memory of but a few that saw them in the dingy clubs of the era.
As if to prove their quirkiness, Existence's existence (as it were) is also murky. Their debut Reign in Violence was recorded in 1990 but not released until 2001. To add to the weirdness, that debut only came out on LP. In 2001? So they missed the cassette and tail end of the LP era only to release an LP in the middle of the CD era. OHKaaay. Their next recording wouldn't be until 14 years later, the cd-r only Ventricular Fibrillation. By then the few that did know Existence had long forgotten them and this oddly titled release didn't get them any further notice. They did release one more CD in 2008 which I haven't heard.
To take the strangeness one step further, the privately released Reign in Violence II compilation features the above two albums. Neither in full (first album is missing one track and the latter is missing three), but the oddest part is the way the tracks are presented. Every other song comes from one album or the other. And while their musical approach didn't change at all in those 14 years, their sound did. So it's a rather jarring contrast going back and forth. One from a 1990 era tech metal production album to another 2004 production, which has an almost industrial sound to it. It's just bizarre really. The booklet doesn't help, providing lyrics to only the Reign in Violence album while the other you would think might be instrumental (it's not). The back cover color codes which album each track comes from, but they don't provide a key to the colors. And just to put the final nail in the insane grave, they inserted one 15 second uncredited instrumental in the middle, so even the track numbers don't match for the latter two thirds. What a mess.
Ownership: CD: 2005 private. Jewel case with photos and lyrics. Acquired in 2016 as part of a large CD buy. That I'm just now hearing...
8/4/24 (first listen / review / new entry)
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