Believer - Dimensions
Roadrunner Records
Avant-Garde, Technical Thrash Metal
10 songs (52:50)
Release year: 1993
Believer, Roadrunner Records
Reviewed by Goat
Archive review

Perhaps the most experimental and Avant-Garde exploration of their sound yet, Believer’s third album is in many ways a lost classic. Practically no-one has heard of it, yet the band were doing things back in the early nineties which more modern bands would later be happy to make their name from. From the opening riff-heavy blast of Gone to the closing Prog-Metal of Trilogy Of Knowledge, Believer pulled all the spots out, and were rewarded with precisely nothing. Not that five-minute-plus slabs of Tech-Thrash are easily sellable, but you’d think that the band’s sound would be more popular in these modern times where Thrash is king... alas, not to be. Still, the more knowledgeable amongst you can revel in the knowledge that you are fully up to date with the Pennsylvanian quintet, Dimensions being a Thrashing headfuck of an album that defiantly refuses to grow old gracefully. The classical-backed tones of Dimentia alone are worth the purchase price, and moments like the technical thrashings of What Is But Cannot Be and No Apology make this album all that is promised and more.

The main attraction here is, without a doubt, the four-part epic Trilogy Of Knowledge, which opens like Metallica gone orchestral and soon ascends to even higher plains, female operatic vocals arising from nowhere and taking the music to places that few Thrash Metallers would expect. As the piece continues, we’re treated to Classical instrumental parts mixed in deep with the foundation Thrash, the melodious instrumental setting of part three alone, subtitled The Truth, taking Believer’s base sound to extreme heights indeed. Think Atheist crossed with Metallica and you’re still a ways from understanding Believer’s core sound here.

Being fair, the four-part trilogy doesn’t smash a great deal of doors down, but it is an intriguing listen, and fits in well with the album as a whole. Believer here don’t seem to be making vast experimental steps as much as they do sideways steps, subverting a genre into something quite different. If you’ve heard the more technical Thrash Metal bands ply their wares, then Believer should be quite a shock, such is the level of their commitment. From the tech-Thrash likes of Future Mind onwards, the band go all-out to prove their individuality, and it’s hard not to be impressed throughout the album, whether you’re a pure and true headbanger or the most experimental of fringe Metalheads. Believer ultimately created something here that the scene simply could not understand, and so it languishes unpraised still, over fifteen years later – it’s more than worthy of reappraisal.

Killing Songs :
Future Mind, Dimentia, What Is But Cannot Be, No Apology, Trilogy Of Knowledge
Goat quoted 89 / 100
Other albums by Believer that we have reviewed:
Believer - Gabriel reviewed by Goat and quoted 86 / 100
Believer - Sanity Obscure reviewed by Goat and quoted 84 / 100
Believer - Extraction From Mortality reviewed by Goat and quoted 72 / 100
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