Wicked Innocence- Omnipotence (1995)

Seems that everybody else is doing a thing on mid-90's DM post so I figured I oughta hop on the bandwagon. And I gotta quit the dolphins: the gayest cetaceans known to man. Plus my metal was challenged. I give you Salt Lake City, Utah's Wicked Innocence.





They are one of the first bands to inject a special kind of weird to their music, and not just regular weird, like say, Atheist or even Demilich do but the kind of abstract, bizarrist weird that Cephalic Carnage or Dripping would come to do.



The foundation is 90's death metal: Suffocation, bits of Atheist and hints of what Brutal Truth was doing then. But what they do with the influences is what makes them so weird. They don't rely on extraneous effects or carnival music. It's all songwriting, arranging the riffs in such a way as to give the whole thing a surrealist vibe:

Slam riffs give way to lurchy tech-ish parts then to melodic solos then to lilting twisted blasts. Riffs stop and start then start again. Sometimes they never go anywhere. This is all put together for maximum unpredictability and top awesomeness. Abstract bits of clean, droning vocals, jazzy fills, and spoken word are mixed in to keep it even weirder. Sometimes it becomes unwieldy, buy they always redeem themselves quickly. Atmospheric Death Metal this ain't. Unless the atmosphere is Suffocation peaking on mushrooms. If that's what these guys were going for they got it right on the mark.

This all combines for a masterpiece of surrealist brutal death, so hop on the crazy train. Here's their second Album, 1995s Omnipotence:

Where do you buy acid in Utah?

BONUS:

Wicked Innocence-Worship