Artist: Beissert
Title: The Pusher
Type: Album
Label: Agonia Records

It’s nice to come across a band that can definitely be considered fresh, someone who has clearly developed their own distinct style. German quartet Beissert definitely qualify as that, as after repeated listens of latest album ‘The Pusher’, I’m still really not sure what it is I’ve been listening to. It’s Sludge, and Thrash, and Doom. It meanders over a multitude of styles, yet never quite settles on a particular angle of attack. In many ways, this is a good thing as it really does hold the attention span throughout, and it’s undeniably catchy in places, but despite the ‘certified fresh’ rating, it’s not all good news.

From the outset, ‘The Pusher’ goes for the throat as the opening track of the same name crashes in with all the force and deliberation of the village blacksmith shoeing a horse who has spilled his pint. There is a steady pounding force to the drums which is complimented by a dirty and deliberate downtuned guitar before Mr Beissert comes in with an aggressive barking set of vocal chords. Now Beissert’s voice is both a blessing and a curse as he is quite versatile. He mixes a raw, rasping angry shouting voice with a strong clean vocal. This works very well together on the majority of the songs, but there is always that niggling thing that something is not right, and that thing clearly is that he is often out of tune. He’s never enough out of tune for it to be a serious issue, and in a lot of cases it fits the songs well, but sometimes it is a bit grating. The riffs are solid and groovy throughout, and the rhythm section faultless, but the biggest problem is the way the styles vary incongruously from song to song, leaving the impression that you are listening to either a covers album or a random collection of demos and B-Sides, a feeling which is exacerbated by the awful production. Influences constantly bombard you from all angles, there’s Sepultura, Down, Crowbar, Clutch, Life of Agony, King Diamond, QOTSA, Supergrass, (I heard it, it’s in there), so the end result is a bit of a mess in places. It’s a strangely exciting mess though.

There are things that really don’t work. A short piano interlude which seems massively out of place for one, the irritating chorus to ‘Saxon:Blood:Rock’, the irritating reminder of Keith Caputo whenever you hear the infuriating, and yet infuriatingly catchy chorus to ‘Yggdrasil’. To balance that off though you have the excellent title track, the brilliantly anthemic sludge of ‘Eerie Discipline’ and the simplistically catchy ‘Gedanke und Einnerung’.

I’ll freely admit, after half or dozen or so listens, I’m really not sure if I’m sold or not. I can tell you that it gets better with each listen, almost as if there is a very clever hidden structure within the chaos that slowly reveals itself over time. Musically, they are creative and catchy for the most part, but there are those moments, (quite a few if I’m honest), where you can’t help but wince a bit. Beissert are a very brave band, and much credit is deserved for that, but the overriding impression I get when listening to ‘The Pusher’ is that I’m getting an unfinished product. The poor production, (and not poor in a Black Metal style), combined with the raw and occasionally wobbly vocals result in what sounds like an albums worth of demo material, and that’s not really good enough for a band who are clearly better than that. With a little more time and effort spent on refinement, this could have been a very good album, but as it is, the finished product is simply unfinished.

http://www.myspace.com/beissert